king town of Ostrog. The place, with its roofs covered with
freshly-fallen snow, lay upon the slight slope of a low hill, beneath
which wound the Wilija Goryn, now frozen so hard that the bridge was
hardly ever used. It was January, and that month in Poland is always a
cold one.

I had crossed the frontier at the little village of Kolodno, and thence
driven along the valleys into Volynien, a long, weary, dispiriting
drive, on and on until those bells maddened me by their monotonous
rhythm. Cramped and cold I was, notwithstanding the big fur coat I wore,
the fur cap with flaps, fur gloves, and fur rug. The country inns in
which I had spent the past two nights had been filthy places where the
stoves had been surrounded by evil-smelling peasantry, where the food
was uneatable and where a wooden bench had served me as a bed.

At each stage where we changed horses the post-house keeper had held up
his hands when he knew my destination was Ostrog. "The Red Rooster" was
crowing there, they said significantly.

It was true. Russia was under the Terror again, and in no place in the
whole empire were the revolutionists so determined as in the town
whither I was bound. I saw at once the reason why Hartmann was there--to
secretly stir up strife, for it is to the advantage of Germany that
Russia should be in a state of unrest. To observe the German methods was
certainly interesting.

Ostrog at last! As I stood up and descended unsteadily from my sleigh my
eyes fell upon something upon the snow near the door of the inn. There
was blood. It told its own tale.

From the white town across the frozen river I heard revolver shots,
followed by a loud explosion that shook the whole place and startled the
three horses in my sleigh.

Inside the long, low, common room of the inn, with its high brick stove,
against which half a dozen frightened-looking men and women were
huddled, I asked for the proprietor, whereupon an elderly man, with
shaggy hair and beard, came forth, pulling his forelock.

"I want to stay here," I said.

"Yes, your excellency," was the old fellow's reply, in Polish. "Whatever
accommodation my poor inn can afford is at your service"--and he at once
shouted orders to my driver to bring in my kit, while the women, all of
them flat-faced peasants, made room for me at the stove.

From where I stood I could hear the sound of desultory firing across the
bridge, and inquired what was in progress.

But there was an omin