s, and could
only crouch there, with my teeth set, enduring the pain that racked me,
with as much fortitude as I could muster.

There was a clatter and jingle on the road behind us, and an instant
later a droshky passed, at a comparatively slow pace,--the one horse
seemed almost spent,--preceded and followed by a small escort of
cavalry.

For the moment I forgot the torture I was enduring, as I recognized,
with dismay, the Grand Duke Loris as one of the two occupants of the
little carriage,--a bizarre, disreputable-looking figure, for he still
wore the filthy clothes and the dirty face of "Ivan," the droshky man,
though the false beard and wig were gone. Yet, in spite of his attire
and the remains of his disguise, he looked every inch a prince. His blue
eyes were wide and serene, and he held a cigarette between two begrimed
fingers. Beside him was a spick and span officer, sitting well back in
his corner and looking distinctly uncomfortable; while the easy grace of
the Duke's attitude would have suited a state-carriage rather than this
shabby little vehicle; though it suited that, too.

He glanced at the cart, and our eyes met. I saw a flash of recognition
in his, but next instant the droshky, with its escort, had passed, and
we were lumbering on again.

He also was a prisoner, then! But what of Anne and her father? Had they
escaped? Surely, if they had been taken, he would not have sat there
smoking so unconcernedly! But who could tell? I, at least, knew him for
a consummate actor.

Well, conjecture was futile; and I was soon in a state of fever,
consequent on pain and loss of blood, that rendered conjecture, or
coherent thought of any kind impossible.

I don't even recollect arriving at the prison,--that same grim fortress
of Peter and Paul which I had mused on as I looked at it across the
river such a short time back, reckoned by hours, an eternity reckoned by
sensations! What followed was like a ghastly nightmare; worse, for it
was one from which there was no awaking, no escape. Often even now I
start awake, in a sweat of fear, having dreamed that I was back again in
that inferno, racked with agony, faint with hunger, parched with thirst.
For the Russian Government allows its political prisoners twelve ounces
of black bread a day, and there's never enough water to slake the
burning thirst of the victims, or there wasn't in those awful summer
days, which, I have been told, are yet a degree more endurable than