a!_ It is ordered, dear little soul," murmured
Boolba. "I go back alone--listen! My auto is turning. I go back alone,
_drushka_, and who shall be my eyes now that my little mama is gone?"

They heard the chair pushed back as he rose and the scream and flurry as
she leapt at him.

"Keep her away, little comrade," roared Boolba. "Keep her away--I am
blind; her father blinded me; keep her away!"

It was Cherry Bim who slipped first from the cupboard.

Under the menace of his guns the soldiers fell back.

"Auto Russki--hold up the guard, Hay," he muttered, and Malinkoff jumped
through the doorway to the step of the big car in one bound.

Cherry held the room. He spoke no Russian, but his guns were
multi-lingual. There was a shot outside before he fired three times into
the room. Then he fell back, slamming the door, and jumped into the car
as it moved through the open gateway.

Malcolm was on one footboard, Malinkoff by the side of the chauffeur on
the other.

So they rocked through the ill-paved streets of Moscow, and rushed the
suburban barricade without mishap.

CHAPTER XIV

IN THE HOLY VILLAGE

"Preopojensky, but by a circuitous route," said Malinkoff, speaking
across the chauffeur. "What about the wires?"

He looked up at the telegraph lines, looping from pole to pole, and
Malcolm thrust his head into the window of the limousine to communicate
this danger to the sybaritic Mr. Bim, who was spraying himself with
perfume from a bottle he had found in the well-equipped interior of the
car.

"Stop," said Cherry. "We're well away from Moscow."

At a word from Malinkoff the chauffeur brought the car to a standstill
and Cherry slipped out, revolver in hand.

Then to the amazement of Malcolm and the unfeigned admiration of the
general, Cherry Bim made good his boast. Four times his gun cracked and
at each shot a line broke.

"To be repeated at intervals," said Cherry, climbing into the car. "Wake
me in half an hour," and, curling himself up in the luxurious depths of
swansdown cushions, he fell asleep.

Happily Malinkoff knew the country to an inch. They were not able to
avoid the villages without avoiding the roads, but they circumnavigated
the towns. At nightfall they were in the depths of a wood which ran down
to the edge of the big lake on which the holy village of Preopojensky
stands.

"The chauffeur is not the difficulty I thought he would be," reported
Malinkoff; "he used to drive Kornilof