“Why?”
“It swarms with frontier-guards,” he answered, with a low laugh. “We have no desire to encounter any of these gentlemen this evening, therefore we must presently take to the paths. See!” and he nodded upward to the sky, “The tail of the Great Bear points downwards. We shall have luck to-night.”
“Is this the route you take with the fugitives?” I asked, pausing to take breath, and gazing around upon the lovely scene, for here the moonlit river flowed among its osiers and rushes, across the great grass-covered steppe.
“Yes,” he answered. “This is the only portion of our journey where there are serious risks of detection, so let us hurry. On a bright night like this, a man can be seen a long way off. The guards are too fond of hiding along the banks, fearing that any German boats from Endruszen may creep up the river.”
I started forward again, and we both quickened our pace. I now saw from his demeanour that he feared an encounter, for at each unusual sound he paused, his hand uplifted in silence. At last, at a point where the stream made a sudden bend, we left the river road and plunged into a great marsh, where the reeds grew almost as high as ourselves, and where our feet ever and anon sank deep into chill, slimy mud. As soon as we had left the river, my strange guide became as jovial as before, and spoke entirely without restraint. Fear of detection no longer troubled him, for as we held on our way over the soft clay, the silence of the calm night was now and then broken by his coarse laughter. On that flat, marshy land, each step became hampered by huge cakes of yellow mud that clung to our boots, while often I sank with a splash ankle-deep in water, much to my companion’s amusement. Whistling softly to himself, he laughed at all misfortunes, assuring me that we should very soon find drier ground, and that before dawn I should meet Sonia Korolénko, who was awaiting me.
“She is your leader—eh?” I asked.
“Well, of course,” he answered, with a grim smile. In the moonlight he looked a shaggy, evil-faced ruffian, and more than once, when I remembered that I had upon me a good round sum in notes and gold, I regretted that I had trusted myself with him unarmed. “The police drove her from Vienna, from Paris, from London; so she has come to us.”
“And is yours a paying profession?” I asked interested.
“Generally,” he answered, with that frankness that characterised all his conversation. “You’d be surprised how many people seek our assistance. Some of our party are in St Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw, and make the contracts with the fugitives; then they hand them over to us, and we do the rest.”
“You guarantee to put them on German soil, or bring foreigners into Russia for a fixed sum?”