Even when they were tired the children would break out of the straggling line, and flit to and fro among the flowers, and come back laden with wild roses and bluebells and buttercups and daisies, and prattling with delight in their short-lived treasures in a way that braced weary mothers afresh for the rest of the journey. For the first day or two both Pavlof and Palma felt even the sixteen or twenty-mile course a long one. The stone bags and casemates of Schlusselburg and Petropavlovsk do not make for muscularity. But the fresh air was a tonic. The season had been a rainy one so far, and they were spared the torment of the dust. The full day's rest each third day gave them time to recover, and before the first week was out they found the day's march within their powers, though the monotony of it soon began to pall. They walked side by side and spoke much together, and, bit by bit, Pavlof came to know much of Hope's life in Odessa, and satisfied himself that her marriage had made for her happiness. It was new life to Palma to talk of Hope Ivanovna to one who knew and understood her, and who was never tired of listening. He could talk of her all day long, her sayings and her doings, her goodness and her beauty; and the fragrance of her memory shortened the stages, and softened the asperities of the road and the discomforts of the crowded rest-houses. And if Paul Pavlof spoke little it was because he thought the more, and because he had no text so good to speak upon. And in the reeking darkness of the kameras where they were herded at night like cattle, he looked past the cramping horrors and discomforts, and smiled--and showed as yet no signs of madness. The Great Siberian Road is kin to Death of the Equal Foot as a leveller of distinctions. Here men are equals in most respects, even though the politicals receive an extra few farthings a day to live upon, and have a right to bump their bones to pieces in the springless telégas instead of tramping on their own two feet. Those are matters of small importance, however, in the darkness of the overhanging cloud. To all, the past is equally dead--a closed book; to all, the future is a hopeless blank--a book sealed with many seals, and every seal a sorrow. In the comparative privacy of the dilapidated rest-house where they lay the second night and all the third day, the burly ex-convict, Ignatz, the man who looked like a carthorse, came to them and asked if they would join a trade union the prisoners had been forming among themselves, and of which he had been chosen president on account of his unique knowledge of the ropes. This idea of the "artel" was new to them, and Pavlof especially was interested. "What is it for?" he asked. "We club funds, barin, and stand by one another." "What to do?"