So, lying with his chin in his hand, in the slant beams of the sun, Serge Palma told them how France had once shaken off the thrall and risen red and free. And below them the ferry swung slowly to and fro, and the crowd on this side grew greater and greater, till at last the other bank was bare, and the re-formed convoy crept slowly away along the road like a crippled snake. And Hope Palma's spirits were troubled at the thought that, in seeking the man she wished to find, she must encounter again a man whom she had every reason to fear and mistrust. When the convoy was out of sight, and the eastern hills had relapsed into their natural solitude, the three men in the cleft stole away along the river to find some friendly fisherman who would put them across and keep his mouth shut. And so Serge Palma, known as Pavlof, six weeks escaped from Minusinsk, toiled west in quest of his wife, as she was toiling east in quest of him. A strange chance, truly, that brought these two within touch of one another and yet withheld the meeting. But life is threaded with just such narrow dividing lines. And sometimes we cross them, and with a single step the whole complexion of a life is changed for good or ill. But more often we press on all unconscious of that which lies so close. We escape disaster by a hair's breadth and miss fortune by an inch. And, though man be never so much a free agent, it is comforting still to believe that there is a higher hand which holds the twisted threads and guides the shuttle in its flight. The journey had been a terribly trying one, and in spite of her high spirit and her ministry of help, Hope had felt her bodily strength waning daily. At Irkutsk, with still a thousand miles between her and Kara, and that the roughest part of the road, she broke down and lay there for a month with a recurrence of her fever, born, no doubt, of the deadly atmosphere of the rest-houses. When at last she was able to take the road again, the summer was past. The bracing freshness of the autumn air was very sweet after the weariness of the sick-room. She was glad to be among her fellows in affliction again. She pressed on with new hope and unabated courage. CHAPTER XI HOW HOPE FOUND LESS THAN SHE EXPECTED AND MORE It was with a much reduced party that Hope travelled from Irkutsk on the final journey to Kara--almost the Ultima Thule of exiledom, but not quite. There are exiles more dreadful in their hopeless exclusion even than dreaded Kara. With such, fortunately, we have nothing to do. The mere dry facts of life in the Yakut uluses twist the very heart-strings with pity and indignation.