‘If the chaps can only answer our names for us to-night, as they said they would try to do,’ said Jack, ‘that will give us a good start, providing our absence is not discovered until to-morrow.’ ‘They will do all they can,’ said Linham; and, lulled by the motion of the wagon, both he and Jack fell asleep. When they awoke they were standing still. ‘Hallo!’ cried Jack, ‘what’s the matter I wonder?’ He poked out his head just as Sergius was heard calling, ‘Excellency, excellency, are you asleep?’ ‘I was,’ replied Jack; ‘but am now awake.’ ‘You can both come out,’ cried the delighted Sergius; and Jack and Linham did so. They found they were in the open country, far away from Voronesh. The droshky stood behind them, and the driver was feeding his horses. ‘I dropped behind,’ said Sergius; ‘the others are now well ahead. We must do quickly what we have to do,’ and he produced a bundle containing complete suits of clothes, which he wanted Jack and Linham to assume. Jack at once consented, but Linham flatly refused. He would wear no Russian clothes he said. If he were captured it should be as a soldier; he would run no risk of being shot as a spy. In the end he consented to wear a black astrakhan cap, and put on a light coat over his uniform, which quite altered his appearance. Jack assumed the dress of a Russian trader; then, transferring several packages from the van to the droshky, Sergius bade Jack and Linham enter, and whipping up his horses, away they went southwards. ‘What will become of the van?’ asked Jack. ‘My boy will overtake the others, and travel with them as far as Moscow. There he will sell all and return to Teberti.’ The two horses in the droshky were splendid animals and spanked along at a grand rate. By nightfall they had travelled fifty versts, and they slept at a tiny village where no questions were asked. Next day they went on again, and thanks to the passport with which the count had provided Sergius, and thanks also to a good supply of money which he used freely, they made splendid progress. They went by unfrequented roads, staying mostly at small villages. Jack’s knowledge of Russian stood them in good stead; and though, owing to Linham’s eccentricities, they had several narrow escapes from detection by detachments of soldiers they met upon the road, at last they crossed the Dneiper at Kherson, and next day came once again in sight of Perekop, which town, however, Sergius avoided, going on as far as Balgaza. Jack was overjoyed at finding himself once more in the Crimea, and hoped soon to be again with the British army. The following night they neared Simpheropol, and then it was necessary to move with the greatest caution, as they were surrounded by Russian troops. They were not very far from Old Fort, the spot where the allied armies had landed nearly a year before, and Jack sighed as he thought of the terrible experiences they had passed through since that date.