ys the dispatches to Pekin in a fortnight.

It was this wire, extending from Ekaterenburg to Nikolaevsk, which had
been cut, first beyond Tomsk, and then between Tomsk and Kolyvan.

This was why the Czar, to the communication made to him for the second
time by General Kissoff, had answered by the words, "A courier this
moment!"

The Czar remained motionless at the window for a few moments, when the
door was again opened. The chief of police appeared on the threshold.

"Enter, General," said the Czar briefly, "and tell me all you know of
Ivan Ogareff."

"He is an extremely dangerous man, sire," replied the chief of police.

"He ranked as colonel, did he not?"

"Yes, sire."

"Was he an intelligent officer?"

"Very intelligent, but a man whose spirit it was impossible to subdue;
and possessing an ambition which stopped at nothing, he became involved
in secret intrigues, and was degraded from his rank by his Highness the
Grand Duke, and exiled to Siberia."

"How long ago was that?"

"Two years since. Pardoned after six months of exile by your majesty's
favor, he returned to Russia."

"And since that time, has he not revisited Siberia?"

"Yes, sire; but he voluntarily returned there," replied the chief of
police, adding, and slightly lowering his voice, "there was a time,
sire, when NONE returned from Siberia."

"Well, whilst I live, Siberia is and shall be a country whence men CAN
return."

The Czar had the right to utter these words with some pride, for often,
by his clemency, he had shown that Russian justice knew how to pardon.

The head of the police did not reply to this observation, but it was
evident that he did not approve of such half-measures. According to
his idea, a man who had once passed the Ural Mountains in charge of
policemen, ought never again to cross them. Now, it was not thus under
the new reign, and the chief of police sincerely deplored it. What! no
banishment for life for other crimes than those against social order!
What! political exiles returning from Tobolsk, from Yakutsk, from
Irkutsk! In truth, the chief of police, accustomed to the despotic
sentences of the ukase which formerly never pardoned, could not
understand this mode of governing. But he was silent, waiting until
the Czar should interrogate him further. The questions were not long in
coming.

"Did not Ivan Ogareff," asked the Czar, "return to Russia a second time,
after that journey through the Siberian provinces,