children of an old
officer in Batum whose wife had left him."

Something snaps behind me--something sounding like the hammer of a
revolver. However, it is only the warder closing the lid of his huge
watch before restoring the watch to his pocket, giving himself a
stretch, and yawning to the utmost extent of his jaws.

"You see, she had money, and, but for her restlessness, might have
lived a comfortable life enough. As it was, her restlessness--"

"Time for exercise is up!" shouts the warder.

"Who are you?" adds Konev hastily. "Somehow I seem to remember your
face; but I cannot place it."

Yet so stung am I with what I have heard that I move away in silence:
save that just as I reach the top of the steps I turn to cry:

"Goodbye, mate, and give her my greeting."

"What are you bawling for?" blusters the warder....

The corridor is dim, and filled with an oppressive odour. The warder
swings his keys with a dry, thin clash, and I, to dull the pain in my
heart, strive to imitate him. But the attempt proves futile; and as the
warder opens the door of my cell he says severely:

"In with you, ten-years man!"

Entering, I move towards the window. Between some grey spikes on a wall
I can just discern the boisterous current of the Kura, with sakli
[warehouses] and houses glued to the opposite bank, and the figures of
some workmen on the roof of a tanning shed. Below, with his cap pushed
to the back of his head, a sentry is pacing backwards and forwards.

Wearily my mind recalls the many scores of Russian folk whom it has
seen perish to no purpose. And as it does so it feels crushed, as in a
vice, beneath the burden of great and inexorable sorrow with which all
life is dowered.

IN A MOUNTAIN DEFILE

In a mountain defile near a little tributary of the Sunzha, there was
being built a workman's barraque--a low, long edifice which reminded
one of a large coffin lid.

The building was approaching completion, and, meanwhile, a score of
carpenters were employed in fashioning thin planks into doors of equal
thinness, knocking together benches and tables, and fitting
window-frames into the small window-squares.

Also, to assist these carpenters in the task of protecting the barraque
from tribesmen's nocturnal raids, the shrill-voiced young student of
civil engineering who had been set in charge of the work had sent to
the place, as watchman, an ex-soldier named Paul Ivanovitch, a man of
the Cossack type, and mys