“They were very exhausted and complained to me of ill-treatment by their guards,” he answered. “But if we investigated every complaint we should have more than sufficient to do.”
“How long ago did they leave here?”
“About two months,” was the man’s reply. “The elder prisoner implored to be sent to the Trans-Baikal, where the climate is not so rigorous as in the north, and this would probably have been done had it not been for the special memorandum of His Excellency General Markoff.”
“Then he suggested her being sent to the Yakutsk settlement—in fact, to her death—eh?” I asked.
His Excellency replied:
“That seems so. The prisoners have already been on their way two months, at first by tarantass and now, no doubt, by sled. There were fifteen others, nine men and six women—all dangerous politicals, I see,” he added, glancing at the order which he had signed and was now produced by the prison governor. “If it is your intention to travel and overtake them, then I fear your journey will be futile.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I expect that long before you reach them their dead bodies will have been left upon the road,” replied His Excellency. “Politicals who die here in Siberia, and especially those marked as dangerous, are not mourned, I assure you.”
“There was, if I remember aright, a telegram to Your Excellency from General Markoff regarding prisoners of that name only three days ago,” remarked the Cossack captain. “It inquired whether you knew if Madame de Rosen were still alive.”
“Ah, yes, I remember. And I replied that I had no knowledge,” the General said.