Kosmaroff found the bread and tore a piece off. Then he made himself as comfortable as he could in the stern of the boat, using one oar as a rudder. But he could not see much. He could only keep the boat heading down stream and avoid the larger floes. Then—wet, tired out, conscious of failure, sick at heart—he fell asleep, too, in the hands of God.
When he awoke he found Martin crouching beside him, wide awake. The prince had taken the oar and was steering. The clouds had all cleared away, and a full moon was high above them. The dawn was in the sky above the level land. They were passing through a plain now, broken here and there by pollarded trees, great spaces of marshland, with big, low-roofed farms standing back on the slightly rising ground. It was almost morning.
Kosmaroff sat up, and immediately began to shiver. Martin was shivering too, and handed him the vodka-bottle with a laugh. His spirits were proof even against failure and a hopeless dawn and bitter cold.
“Where are we?” he asked.
Kosmaroff stood up and looked round. They were travelling at a great pace in the company of countless ice-floes, some white with snow, others gray and muddy.
“I know where we are,” he answered, after a pause. “We have passed Wyszogrod. We are nearing Plock. We have come a great distance. I wish my teeth wouldn’t chatter.”
“I have secured mine with a piece of bread,” mumbled Martin.
Kosmaroff was looking uneasily at the sky.
“We cannot travel during the day,” he said, after a long examination of the little clouds hanging like lines across the eastern sky. “We shall not be able to cross the frontier at Thorn with this full moon, and I am afraid we are going to have fine weather. We shall soon come to some large islands on this side of Plock. I know a farmer there. We must wait with him until we have promise of a suitable night to pass through Thorn.”
Before daylight they reached the islands. There was no pack now; the ice was afloat and moving onward. All Kosmaroff’s skill, all the little strength of both was required to work the boat through the floes towards the land. The farmer took them in willingly enough, and boasted that they could not have found a safer hiding-place in all Poland, which, indeed, seemed true enough. For none but expert and reckless boatmen would attempt to cross the river now.
Nevertheless, Kosmaroff made the passage to the mainland before midday, and set off on foot to Plock. He was going to communicate with the prince at Warsaw, and ask him to provide money or means of escape to await them at Danzig. In two days a reply came, telling them that their escape was being arranged, but they must await further instructions before quitting their hiding-place. After the lapse of four days these further orders came by the same sure channel, which was independent of the Russian post-offices.
The fugitives were to proceed cautiously to Danzig, to pass through that town at night to the anchorage below Neufahrwasser. Here they would find Captain Cable, in the Minnie, anchored in the stream ready for sea. The instructions were necessarily short. There were no explanations whatever. There was no news.
At Plock, Kosmaroff could learn nothing, for nothing was known there. The story of the great plot had been hushed up by the authorities. There are persons living in Warsaw who do not know of it to this day. There are others who know of it and deny that it ever existed. The arms are in use in Central Asia at the present time, though their pattern is already considered antiquated. Anyone who may choose to walk along the Czerniakowska will find today on the left-hand side of it a large building, once an iron-foundry, now deserted and falling into disrepair. If it be evening-time, he will, as likely as not, meet the patrol from the neighboring hussar barracks, which nightly guards this road and the riverside.
After receiving their final instructions, Kosmaroff and Martin had to wait two days until the weather changed—until the moon, now well on the wane, did not rise before midnight.
At last they set out, in full daylight, on a high river still encumbered by ice. It was much warmer during the day now; but the evenings were cold, and a thick mist usually arose from the marshlands. This soon enveloped them, and they swept on unseen. None could have followed them into the mist, for none had Kosmaroff’s knowledge of the river.
The frontier-line is some miles above the ancient city of Thorn. It is strictly guarded by day and night. The patrol-boats are afloat at every hour. Kosmaroff had arranged to arrive at this spot early in the night, before the mists had been dispelled by the coming of the moon.
Even he could only guess at their position. Once they dared to approach the shore in order to discover some landmark. But they navigated chiefly by sound. The whistle of a distant train, the sound of church clocks, the street cries of a town—these were Kosmaroff’s degrees of latitude.
“We are getting near,” he said, in little more than a whisper. “What is the time?”
It was nearly eleven o’clock. If they got past the frontier they would sweep through Thorn before midnight. The river narrows here, and goes at a great pace. It is still of a vast width—one of the largest rivers in Europe.
The mist was very thick here.
“Listen!” whispered Kosmaroff, suddenly. And they heard the low, regular thud
