"I will find out. Perhaps you can make it convenient to call at my office to-morrow. It is a terrible journey. You have no idea what it means. Months of travel, and at the very worst time of year. Wait, at all events, till the spring." "I would start this moment if I could. I shall know no rest till I get there." "Undoubtedly," said the Colonel, who knew a great deal more about it than she did. By one pretext and another he managed to retard the granting of the permits for nearly two months. Then there were delays upon the road, and a weary wait at Tiumen till the Irtish opened. So that May was well advanced before she found herself at last sitting inside the wire cage of the great convict barge which carried herself and five hundred more into exile, and watched the yellow banks drift by into the past like the lives and hopes they were leaving behind them. CHAPTER IX HOW HOPE SHORTENED THE LONG ROAD In spite of her high courage and fervent spirit, Hope Palma never recalled without a shudder the horrors of that long journey down the Volga, over the Urals, down the Irtish and up the Ob, to Tomsk, and thence along the great Siberian road to Irkutsk. The physical trials of the road, the defective supply of coarse food, the bone-bruising bumping of the springless telégas, the promiscuous herding at night in the filthy, unventilated étapes--the convict stage-houses--where the tortured children cried incessantly till they slept and sometimes never woke, and the equally tortured mothers tended them in stony despair--these things burnt themselves into her very soul, and would have broken a less courageous spirit. Old Marya had had to be left behind. The paternal Government provided transport, such as it was, for convicts' wives and children, but Marya had no such claim, and with unflinching kindliness Hope had sent her home to her own people. And the loss of her faithful and whole-hearted sympathy was to her almost as the loss of a part of herself. What money she had she hoarded with miserly care, for there was no knowing for what high service it might avail at the end of her journey. Every rouble might be a step towards Serge's enlargement, and she treasured her pieces as the woman of the Gospel. And yet, at times, the miseries of those about her prevailed. The little ones crept into her heart and her purse, and precious coins were dispensed for slabs of brick tea and cakes, for any possible sweetening of the bitterness which came home to her so closely. With her sweet, firm face and glowing eyes, and the tender pity of a guardian spirit, she lived and moved among them like an angel of mercy, and smoothed their little passages--to exile or the stars, as the case might be--as well as she was able, and in such gentle ministries found relief from her own griefs and fears.