Returning to the pagoda, he found that the horse had eaten the last wisp of hay. He led it out, down the slope on the side farthest from the pursuers, through a dip between two low hills; then coasting round a somewhat steeper hill which hid the pagoda from sight, he judged it safe to mount, and was soon cantering over the snow-covered ground. It was rolling country; at one minute he was as it were on the crest of a wave, the next he would be in a trough. The snow was soft, and the horse’s hoofs left deep pits in the yielding surface by which the course of his flight could be easily tracked. Soon he lost sight of the sea, and had nothing by which to take his bearings; the sky all around was one unbroken lead-gray. As he rode on, he saw with misgiving that the hills were becoming lower and lower; he would be in full sight of the Cossacks when they reached the heights he had just left. There was no alternative but to push on. Of refuge there was none; the whole country seemed to be desert, with no marks of human habitation except here and there a native hut perched on the edge of a clump of trees, the abandoned home of some wood-cutter. Every now and then he reined up his horse and turned in the saddle to see if his pursuers were in sight. Struggling up a long slope, and halting at the top to breathe the animal, he saw before him an almost level stretch, and behind him—yes, there they were at last, a band of at least twenty, who had probably dodged round some of the hills which he had laboriously climbed. He looked eagerly round; there was no way of eluding the pursuers. Should he set his steed at the gallop and try to distance them? That was a vain hope; it would exhaust his panting horse, and the Cossacks would wear him down, following untiringly upon his track like wolves. He must on again, and husband the animal’s strength as much as possible.