Fortunately, my head had not been shaved, as is usual with criminals entering upon the life sentence. The transformation from convict to Imperial messenger was complete. My official dress, with its brass double-headed eagle on the cap, was an effectual disguise. The wide collar of my riding-coat was turned up, and just as it was growing dusk I overtook the convoy. As I saluted the officers they responded, and I rode past, inwardly chuckling, and soon left the sorry band of malefactors far behind. Mine was a terribly lonely and monotonous journey. Instead of following the road to Irkutsk, I rode due north until I came to the mighty Lena, afterwards travelling along its bank a distance of 700 English miles, until I reached Yakoutsk. Remaining there for a couple of days, I again bade farewell to all human companionship, and set out for the terrible regions within the Arctic circle. From the first I had recognised that it would be useless to attempt to return to Petersburg by recrossing the Ourals, for the passport was endorsed with dates so recent that if I presented it at the European frontier it would be at once discovered that I had not had time to travel to Kolymsk. This, combined with various other reasons, caused me to assume the _rôle_ of courier and deliver the Tzar’s dispatches to the person to whom they were addressed. It is needless to refer in detail to my journey of 2,500 versts from Yakoutsk across the great uninhabited desert and over the moss-covered _tundras_, or Arctic swamps, to the most northerly exile settlement. Lonely and weary, I sometimes rode for three and four days without reaching a post-house or seeing a single human being, and frequently I was in a half-starved, half-frozen condition. Time passed, and I kept no count of it. My thoughts were only of eventual freedom. Having destroyed the note left by the dying man, together with my convict’s rags, I knew the post-house keeper would be puzzled at finding the corpse had been plundered, and as there was no telegraph to Yakoutsk, I was confident that I should not be forestalled by the news of the courier’s death.