It grew quite dark, and the icy wind blew in fierce, sharp gusts, while the snow, which commenced to fall thickly, beat into my face. “How far is the next station?” I asked, in Russian, of the driver. “Two versts, your High Nobility,” he replied. “Very well,” I said, “let us hasten. We must remain there to-night, I suppose.” As I paid him to drive me with all possible speed and without resting, he had not grumbled at being compelled to travel during the night, but my decision apparently proved gratifying to him, for he whipped up his horses, and within half an hour I was thawing myself before the great stove in the log-built post-house of Abatskaya, distant two thousand miles from Petersburg. Early on the following morning we were again on the road, continuing throughout the day. In the dull afternoon, soon after we had changed horses at Kalmakova, and were speeding across the great undulating plain towards Omsk, the driver turned suddenly, and, pointing with his whip to a distant hill, exclaimed excitedly— “See! there they are!” Jumping to my feet, and straining my eyes eagerly in the direction indicated, I descried what appeared to be a black, winding streak disappearing over the brow of the hill. “Perhaps, after all, it may be only a train of freight sleighs,” I said. “No! I can see the Cossacks’ bayonets,” he replied; for his practised eyes could detect objects on the snow-covered plains where I could see nothing. For an hour we travelled at increased speed, until we gradually overtook the convoy. My thoughts went back to the ever-to-be-remembered days when I was a “political.” Trudging wearily onward through the deep snow, they were a sorry band. The men wore flat caps on their half-shaven heads, long grey overcoats with diamond-shaped patches of black or yellow on the back, and leg-fetters that filled the air with an ominous clinking. The women, too, wore coarse and ragged clothes of grey homespun, with woollen squares tied tightly over their heads, while in the rear of the sad procession were several _telegas_ filled with the sick. Driving on past the party, we came up to the captain of the Cossack escort. Jumping eagerly from the sleigh, I saluted him, telling him whom I sought, and at the same time handing him an official paper bearing the seal of the Minister of the Interior. Opening it, he shouted an order to halt, and at that moment a ragged, unkempt-looking woman rushed towards me and flung her arms wildly about my neck. So tightly was the kerchief bound over her head for protection from the icy blast, that it was only on second glance that I recognised Mariána. She shed tears of joy. “What’s this?” exclaimed the officer, carefully examining the document. “An order from the Ministry for the immediate release of the convict Mariána Néstoff?” “Yes,” I said. “Here are my identification papers.” “An order for my release, Anton?” she cried. “How did you obtain it?”