For the last few miles the prisoners had been made to march at a rapid rate, as the convoy feared to be too late for the train. They were driven like cattle into the yard, with oaths and blows, almost running, notwithstanding their heavy leg-chains. They were chained two and two together, which added greatly to the difficulty of marching, and even the strongest among them came in breathless and exhausted. Those prisoners who had been confined for some months in narrow cells were half fainting. There were nearly two hundred convicts, all dressed alike in long grey overcoats. Their heads were closely shaved on one side, looking bare and blue; whilst on the other side the hair, grown long in prison, fell in a tangled mass over the ear. Michael could not for some time recognise his father, whom he had not seen since last autumn. At last he saw a gaunt, haggard man, in a filthy shirt, and trousers of coarse grey linen, limping painfully beside a vicious and brutal-looking criminal. This man smiled at him with a noble serenity in his eyes, and with a sharp cry of agony, Michael pushed his way through the jostling crowd, and flung his arms round his father's neck. "Father!" he cried. "Father!" But before his father could speak, the convict to whom Alexis was chained pulled him forward with a jerk and an oath. The waggons set apart for the exiles were rapidly filling up, and he, an old criminal, knew they must make haste if they wished to secure a seat for the night. Khariton Kondraty was close behind, with his wife and children marching beside him; all of them worn-out and footsore, for they had walked twenty miles since morning, and for the last hour they had been almost running. But there was no time to linger, the waggons were being crammed with women and children and their bundles, amid calls and cries and an uproar of voices. Sergius was anxious to prevent his mother and sisters being separated from himself. Michael soon found his hands full in helping his old neighbours from Knishi, lifting the young children into the different compartments, and looking after their baggage. Some of the strangers who were accompanying their convict husbands into exile were willing enough to lose their children for the night, which was rapidly closing in. The waggon was so overcrowded that many of the children sat on the floor; and there was no room for Michael and Sergius except standing against the doors, which were now locked and guarded by the soldiers of the convoy-guard. Tatiania was in a corner beside the boys, with little Clava on her lap, and Marfa squeezed closely to her side. Before the long dark night was over, Michael thanked God fervently that Velia was not there. For all night long, as the train sped through the level plains, there was mingled with the rumbling of the wheels, and the throbbing of the engine, the wailing of children and the loud hysterical sobbing of women, rising now and then to despairing shrieks.