A canal extends through the ground, as a protection against fire, and no smoking is allowed in the streets, on penalty of twenty-five rubles, and the rule is enforced by the Cossacks on duty. Under the streets there is a system of sewers for the draining of the land and the carrying off of refuse matter. A stream of water is made to flow through them several times a day, to remove the deposits there. In the streets there are, at regular intervals, small white towers over staircases to descend into the sewers, where are small apartments for men, in which alone they are allowed to smoke. These improvements have cost large sums of money, and the merchants are taxed to the amount of forty thousand dollars a year to pay the expenses. The tourists drove through the principal avenues of the deserted grounds, and the doctor told them what he had seen there during his former visit when the fair was held. During the ride De Forrest and Beckwith were not much interested in the sights to be seen, or in the descriptions of the surgeon. They realized that the explanation of their absence was not accepted by the surgeon, and probably would not be better received by the principal. "We have made a mess of it," said Beckwith. "I didn't believe in the scrape at all." "You wouldn't have come with me, if you had not," replied the purser. "We haven't been to Kazan, or down the Volga, and we haven't even seen Moscow, as the rest of the fellows have." "We are going there to-night." "Yes; but we leave in two or three hours after we arrive. We shall go on board at Cronstadt, and not be allowed any liberty again. That's all we shall make by running away." "Perhaps not. You may go back to the ship, but I shall not," replied De Forrest, doggedly. "What will you do?" "I told you what I wouldn't do, and that is just the same as telling you what I will do. As you seem to be dissatisfied with what you have done, you can do as you please," growled the purser. "I don't think we have made anything so far by the course we have taken," added Beckwith. "Of course we haven't; we were tripped up." "We may be tripped up again. These Russian policemen don't make anything of stopping a fellow." "We ran right into a trap here in Nijni. The doctor and his party got here before we did, and were looking for us. We shall do well enough if we take another track." "But where do you mean to go?" "If you are going to back out, I won't say anything about it." "I'm not going to back out. I will go with you to the end of the earth." "All right. That sounds like something. We will go right through from Moscow to Warsaw. You know that German _Cours-Buch_ we found at the hotel yesterday?" "Yes; but I couldn't make anything of it." "I laid out a route, and wrote it down on a piece of paper."