"This is Lieutenant Vinsky." Hope bowed again. "He will provide for your comfort, as far as may be, on the journey, and you must remember that he is only carrying out his orders. Mr. Palma," he said, shaking hands with Pavlof, "I shall not forget what I owe to you, and I shall not rest till I get this abominable order annulled. Now, Vinsky is on tenterhooks to be gone. So-- Adieu! Adieu, Madame!" They settled Hope among her bundles in the tarantas, and Pavlof and the lieutenant disposed themselves as comfortably as circumstances would permit. "If you get any reply to your telegram, Captain, you know our route," said Serge, leaning over the side. "Do not fear. I shall send after you post haste if it is good news," said Sokolof. Then the driver climbed to his seat, gathered up his reins, cracked his long lash over his horses' heads, shouted an encouraging "Noo-oo-oo!" and they started at a wild gallop for freedom. The road was full of holes, and the holes were full of mud, and the mud from six madly spurning heels came flying past their heads, and Serge laughed gaily as he drew down the leather curtain in front. Then, with his face still lighted by a broad smile, and a blaze in his bold blue eyes, he turned to Hope, and took her hands in his and kissed them, gloves and all. "Oh, Serge! Is it all real?" she cried, the words jerking out of her to the bumping of the tarantas, and she, all in a red heat of confusion, clinging tight to the side lest she should be thrown out of her seat. "Are you alive? Am I awake? Are we really going to freedom?" "All those," he said, with a hearty laugh of enjoyment. "And you?--you had given me up?" "Yes, we had given you up," she began, but came to a stop. For how was it possible to enter on explanations such as they had to make, when they were all three jumping in their places like marionettes, and their words were shot out of them like pellets, to the endangerment of their teeth. "Serge!" began Pavlof, in the same difficult case. "We have much to tell you." He had to shout to get this out. "So have I," jerked Serge, nodding and smiling happily still. Paul shook his head. It was impossible. He clung to his seat with a grim face, not the face of a man rejoicing at his escape from prison, rather of one riding to trouble. Serge glanced at him questioningly once or twice, but it was on Hope that his eyes turned most of the time, and he looked at her with the hungry gaze of a man who has been overlong deprived of his rightful food. She found it hard to bear, and presently closed her eyes as though the bumping of the tarantas was painful to her. They passed through Ust Kara at speed, and gained the posting road, and turned sharp to the east in the direction of Ignashina. The going was easier now, both as to speed and roadway, but Palma's jubilant smile had faded by degrees for lack of response, and a look of perplexity had taken its place.