"Go on, Mitiushka," said Pafnutitch. Drawing the other warder aside, "He's bringing some victual for the heretics," he whispered, "they've got powerful rich friends in town—friends that pay well; and I said my nephew, Mitiushka, should bring them some comforts. There's a bottle of the best vodka ever went down a man's throat—for me, you know; the poor heretics don't drink vodka. I'm just mad to taste it, and you and me 'll go and have some. I'll just turn Mitiushka in here," he added, stopping at the door of Alexis Ivanoff's cell; "you know he's a poor softy and won't, talk to anybody. I'll lock the door on him; and we'll see what the vodka is like." He pushed Michael into the cell, and turned the key loudly in the lock. There was not a gleam of light, except that just under the ceiling a little square of sky, with two or three stars in it, was visible. Michael heard his father's voice in the darkness. "Who is there?" he asked. "It's me, father," he cried; "Michael!" Groping till they felt one another in the narrow cell, the father and son stood for a few minutes clasped in one another's arms. Never had Michael felt a rapture so pure and overwhelming. For the moment he forgot they were in a prison. They were together again—he and his father. But very soon both of them remembered how precious time was. They sat down side by side on the wooden plank, which served for seat and bed, and Michael told briefly how it happened he was there. There was so much to say, and so short a time to say it in. Alexis gave Michael some news of the prisoners to take home, and messages to carry to sundry friends in Kovylsk, who were stretching to the utmost their influence on behalf of the imprisoned Stundists. "For me," he said calmly, "it must be either Siberia or the Caucasus sooner or later. If it is sooner, before you are fifteen, you may get permission to go with me as my child. Tatiania and Sergius and Marfa will go with Khariton Kondraty. But we must leave Velia and little Clava behind us. They will never give back to us the little ones they have robbed us of." "Father Cyril cares for them as if they were his own," said Michael. "Ah! That is my only comfort," Alexis went on. "But oh, my boy, they will be brought up in the practices we denounce, and for which we are suffering even unto death! But we must leave them in God's hands, He loves them more than we can. If they keep us in prison for years, as some of our brethren have been, you and Sergius will be too old to go with us—" "We will follow you wherever you go," interrupted Michael, "if we have to walk every step of the way. Paraska is saving up every kopek she can get to join her husband in Irkutsk. If a woman can do it, we can. If it was all round the world, we would follow you."