Scarcely had Charlie Balgonie achieved the passage of the Louga, and, in the dark, forced his panting horse up the wooded bank towards the lighted windows of the castle, than his guide and orderly, Corporal Michail Podatchkine, who, for reasons which were his own, and which shall ultimately be explained, had decoyed him many, many versts to the southward of his proper route and then abandoned him, while he still cautiously followed, and watched him plunge into the perilous stream--watched him in the hope that he might perish in its icy current; Corporal Podatchkine, we say, had barely seen that the officer's safety was certain and assured, than he turned his horse's head, and with a hoarse malediction on his bearded mouth, rode away in an opposite direction. The lighted windows of the Castle of Louga soon darkened and vanished in his rear; the snow-flakes came thicker and faster on the icy blast, whitening his round bearskin cap and fur shoubah or cloak, and the untrimmed mane of his shaggy little horse; but with his long lance slung behind him, his knees up to his saddle-bow, and his fierce, keen eyes peering out the way before him, the amiable Podatchkine, who, though a Livonian by birth, had the honour to hold the rank of corporal in a corps of Cossacks, rode on through the dense fir forest as unerringly as if every tree therein had been planted by his own warlike hands. Ere long, with a grunt of satisfaction, he struck upon a track that led to the right and left, and he unhesitatingly pursued the latter. There were then none of those verst-posts, about ten feet high or so, such as may now be found by the side of the Russian roads through the forests, or along the open steppe; but Podatchkine rode steadily on, pausing only now and then to unsling and grasp his spear, or give a fierce gleaming glance around him, while the nostrils of his thick snub-nose dilated, when a prolonged and melancholy howl, rising from the woody depths into the chill drear sky of night, announced that some wolf was rousing itself in its lair among the grass, or in its den beside the river. Anon he came to a place where the forest was partially cleared, and there stood a little hut built of squared logs. The walls of this edifice were whitened artificially; but the roof was rendered whiter still by a coat of the fast-freezing snow. A single ray of smoky light streamed from the opening (which passed for a window) near the door, on which Podatchkine, without dismounting, struck three blows with the butt of his lance. "Nicholas Paulovitch," he exclaimed, "are you within?"