e alive in the morning."

"Good heavens! You don't say so! Why should they interfere with us?"

"Oh, rich, you know, and that kind of thing. And then we're Englishmen.
They'll clear out all the English."

"Oh, I'm not really English. My mother was Russian. I could show them my
papers...."

Bohun laughed. "I'm only kidding you, Watchett," he said. "We're safe
enough. Look, there's not a soul about!" We were at the corner of the
Moika now; all was absolutely quiet. Two women and a man were standing
on the bridge talking together. A few stars clustered above the bend of
the Canal seemed to shift and waver ever so slightly through a gathering
mist, like the smoke of blowing candles.

"It seems all right," said the merchant, sniffing the air suspiciously
as though he expected to smell blood. We turned towards the Morskaia.
One of the women detached herself from the group and came to us.

"Don't go down the Morskaia," she said, whispering, as though some
hostile figure were leaning over her shoulder. "They're firing round the
Telephone Exchange." Even as she spoke I heard the sharp clatter of the
machine-gun break out again, but now very close, and with an intimate
note as though it were the same gun that I had heard before, which had
been tracking me down round the town.

"Do you hear that?" said the merchant.

"Come on," said Bohun. "We'll go down the Moika. That seems safe
enough!"

How strangely in the flick of a bullet the town had changed! Yesterday
every street had been friendly, obvious, and open; they were now no
longer streets, but secret blind avenues with strange trees, fantastic
doors, shuttered windows, a grinning moon, malicious stars, and snow
that lay there simply to prevent every sound. It was a town truly
beleaguered as towns are in dreams. The uncanny awe with which I moved
across the bridge was increased when the man with the women turned
towards me, and I saw that he was--or seemed to be--that same grave
bearded peasant whom I had seen by the river, whom Henry had seen in the
Cathedral, who remained with one, as passing strangers sometimes do,
like a symbol or a message or a threat.

He stood, with the Nevski behind him, calm and grave, and even it seemed
a little amused, watching me as I crossed. I said to Bohun, "Did you
ever see that fellow before?"

Bohun turned and looked.

"No," he said.

"Don't you remember? The man that first day in the Kazan?"

"They're all alike," Bohun said.