d,--England and the United States of America,--that "a man is
regarded as innocent in the eyes of the law until he has been tried and
found guilty."

"Well, how goes it to-day?" Freeman asked, as he relieved his lieutenant
one morning. "You look a sight better than you did. D'you think you can
stand the journey? We don't want you to die on our hands _en route_, you
know!"

"We'll start to-day if you like; I'm fit enough," I answered. "Let's get
back and get it over. It's a preposterous charge, you know; but--"

"We needn't discuss that, Mr. Wynn," he interrupted hastily.

"All right; we won't. Though I fancy I shouldn't have been alive at this
time if you hadn't taken it into your heads to hunt me down as the
murderer of a man who wasn't even a naturalized Englishman. You came
just in the nick of time, Mr. Freeman."

"Well, yes, I think we did that," he conceded. "You were the most
deplorable object I've ever seen in the course of my experience,--and
that's fairly long and varied. I'd like to know how you got into their
clutches; though you needn't say if it has any connection with--"

"Why, certainly. It's nothing to do with Cassavetti, or Selinski, or
whatever his name was," I said.

"I got wind of a Nihilist meeting in the woods, went there out of
curiosity; and the soldiers turned up. There was a free fight; they got
the best of it, took me prisoner with the others, and that's all. But
how did you trace me? How long had you been in Petersburg?"

"Only a couple of days. Found you had disappeared and the Embassies were
raising Cain. It seemed likely you'd been murdered, as Carson was. The
police declared they were making every effort to trace you, without
success; and I doubt if they would have produced you, even in response
to the extradition warrant, but that some one mysteriously telephoned
information to the American Embassy that you were in prison--in the
fortress--and even gave your number; though he would not give his own
name or say where he was speaking from."

Who was it, I wondered,--Loris or Mirakoff? It must have been one or the
other. He had saved my life, anyhow.

"So acting on that, we simply went and demanded you; and good heavens,
what a sight you were! I thought you'd die in the droshky that we
brought you here in. I couldn't help telling the officer who handed you
over that I couldn't congratulate him on his prison system; and he
grinned and said:

"'Ah, I have heard that you English t