In a moment we were out, flying at breakneck speed across the ice, windswept after recent storms. The half-inch of frozen snow just gave grip to the horse’s hoofs. Twice, suddenly bumping into snow ridges, we capsized completely. When we got going again the runners sang just like a sawmill. The driver noticed this too, and was alive to the danger of being heard from shore a couple of miles away; but his sturdy pony, exhilarated by the keen frosty air, was hard to restrain.
Some miles out of Petrograd there lies on an island in the Finnish Gulf the famous fortress of Kronstadt, one of the most impregnable in the world. Searchlights from the fortress played from time to time across the belt of ice, separating the fortress from the northern shore. The passage through this narrow belt was the crucial point in our journey. Once past Kronstadt we should be in Finnish waters and safe.
To avoid danger from the searchlights, the Finn drove within a mile of the mainland, the runners hissing and singing like saws. As we entered the narrows a dazzling beam of light swept the horizon from the fortress, catching us momentarily in its track; but we were sufficiently near the shore not to appear as a black speck adrift on the ice.
Too near, perhaps? The dark line of the woods seemed but a stone’s throw away! You could almost see the individual trees. Hell! what a noise our sledge-runners made!
“Can’t you keep the horse back a bit, man?”
“Yes, but this is the spot we’ve got to drive past quickly!”
We were crossing the line of Lissy Nos, a jutting point on the coast marking the narrowest part of the strait. Again a beam of light shot out from the fortress, and the wooden pier and huts of Lissy Nos were lit as by a flash of lightning. But we had passed the point already. It was rapidly receding into the darkness as we regained the open sea.
Sitting upright on the heap of hay, I kept my eyes riveted on the receding promontory. We were nearly a mile away now, and you could no longer distinguish objects clearly. But my eyes were still riveted on the rocky promontory.
Were those rocks—moving? I tried to pierce the darkness, my eyes rooted to the black point!
Rocks? Trees? Or—or—
I sprang to my feet and shook the Finn by the shoulders with all my force.
“Damn it, man! Drive like hell—we’re being pursued!”
Riding out from Lissy Nos was a group of horsemen, five or six in number. My driver gave a moan, lashed his horse, the sleigh leapt forward, and the chase began in earnest.
“Ten thousand marks if we escape!” I yelled in the Finn’s ear.
For a time we kept a good lead, but in the darkness it was impossible to see whether we were gaining or losing. My driver was making low moaning cries, he appeared to be pulling hard on the reins, and the sleigh jerked so that I could scarcely stand.
Then I saw that the pursuers were gaining—and gaining rapidly! The moving dots grew into figures galloping at full speed. Suddenly there was a flash and a crack, then another, and another. They were firing with carbines, against which a pistol was useless. I threatened the driver with my revolver if he did not pull ahead, but dropped like a stone into the hay as a bullet whizzed close to my ear.
At that moment the sledge suddenly swung round. The driver had clearly had difficulty with his reins, which appeared to have got caught in the shaft, and before I realized what was happening the horse fell, the sledge whirled round and came to a sudden stop.
At such moments one has to think rapidly. What would the pursuing Red guards go for first, a fugitive? Not if there was possible loot. And what more likely than that the sledge contained loot?
Eel-like, I slithered over the side and made in the direction of the shore. Progress was difficult, for there were big patches of ice, coal-black in colour, which were completely windswept and as slippery as glass. Stumbling along, I drew from my pocket a packet, wrapped in dark brown paper, containing maps and documents which were sufficient, if discovered, to assure my being shot without further ado, and held it ready to hurl away across the ice.
If seized, I would plead smuggling. It seemed impossible that I should escape! Looking backward I saw the group round the sledge. The Reds, dismounted, were examining the driver; in a moment they would renew the pursuit, and I should be spotted at once, running over the ice.
Then an idea occurred.
The ice, where completely windswept, formed great patches as black as ink. My clothes were dark. I ran into the middle of a big black patch and looked at my boots. I could not see them!
To get to the shore was impossible, anyway, so this was the only chance. Jerking the packet a few yards from me where I might easily find it, I dropped flat on the black ice and lay motionless, praying that I should be invisible.
It was not long before I heard the sound of hoofs and voices approaching. The search for me had begun. But the riders avoided the slippery windswept places as studiously as I had done in running, and, thank heaven! just there much of the ice was windswept. As they rode round and about, I felt that someone was bound to ride just over me! Yet they didn’t, after all.
It seemed hours and days of night and darkness before the riders retreated to the sledge and
