"That is no affair of ours," answered the old scoundrel, shrugging his shoulders unconcernedly. "Hand us over your money, and we are ready to guarantee you safe conduct, either on into Germany or back to Skerstymone." "I'll pay you nothing, not even a rouble, na vodkou, until you take me to your leader," I answered defiantly, for somehow I had from the first been convinced of the truth of the man's assertion that Sonia was in that neighbourhood. "As we are unable to conduct you to the lady, whoever she is, we shall therefore be compelled to use violence," observed my guide, glancing at his companion, who nodded approvingly. Then, still holding the muzzle of his weapon to my face, he added with brutal frankness: "You'd better make the sign of the cross now, if you want to. It will be the last chance you'll get. When a man's dead and buried he can tell the police nothing." Well I knew the desperate character of these brigandish nomads, and fully recognised that they were not to be trifled with. "The people who come to us for aid never get across the frontier unless they part with their money first," he continued. "If they don't--well, we put them to rest quietly and unceremoniously, and give them decent burial. A good many of all sorts, rich and poor, lie buried in these woods. You asked me whether it was a paying profession," he laughed. "Judge for yourself." He still spoke with that unaffected carelessness that had impressed me when we had first met outside the dingy little "tractir" in Skerstymone. "Come," cried the ragged, fox-faced man, impatiently, with an accent of South Russia. "We have no time to waste; we have many versts before us ere dawn." "Then you'd better be off, and leave me to find my way back as best I can," I said, endeavouring to preserve an outward show of calmness. Some noise, so faint that I did not distinguish it, caused both outlaws to hold their breath and listen. They exchanged quick glances. They had wandered thousands of versts across the "taiga" and the steppe, and constantly on the alert to evade Cossack patrols and police, knew every sound of the forest. They had learnt to know the voice of the wood; the speech of every tree. The great firs rustle with their thick boughs, the dark, gloomy pines whisper to one another in mystery, the bright green leafy trees wave their dewy branches, and the mountain-ash trembles with a noise like a faintly rippling brook. They knew, to their disgust, too, how those spies of the frontier, the magpies, hover in crowds over the track of the man who tries in daylight to creep unseen across the bare open steppe. It was evident that the noise had for an instant puzzled them; yet, after listening a moment, both became reassured, and re-demanded with many violent threats whatever money I had upon me. "I tell you I refuse," I answered. "If you take me to Sonia you shall have two hundred roubles each, with twenty more na vodkou."