Here came the dry chanting of a weird song which made the listener's flesh creep, and her guilty soul quail. Then again, slowly, wearily, Demetrius began to name the stations of his cross on the way to the calvary of a final prison. "Kazan, Pianybor, Perm, the bleak Urals, that prison wall of the exile; Ekaterinburg, Tiumen, the doorstep to the barren cell. Borka, Dobrouna, Oshalka"--the rough Russian names grated on Leah's ears;--"Yevlevoi and the slow-flowing river, the prison barge, the black bread, the bitter, biting, burning cold; Tobolsk, with its deathly mists and clammy darkness of Egypt; the Charity Song--the weary, weary Miloserdnaya!" He sang another line or two in a cracked voice, and broke out more humanly: "Then the warm sunshine like the smile of the good God, and days of those gentle winds we shall never breathe more. The flowers and the winds, the sunshine and the laughing children. Samarof, Sourgout, Narym"; he paused to gather strength for the crying of a name which issued with a sob of heartfelt agony: "Tomsk--oh, Tomsk! Those long, long days of waiting for what was to be; the horrible mercies of the unjust. Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison! Kyrie eleison!" She saw the convulsive movements of the blankets, and knew that he was making the sign of the cross. After the crying to God and His Son came the protest against the cruelty of man. "The weary prison of Tomsk; the road--the long, horrible road to the ice-bound coast. Sakhalin, the island of pain, the hell of the innocent, and a human soul lost. Christe eleison! A loving, sinning soul for which Thou didst die, lost--lost--lost!" Leah's nerves ached and shook and shuddered as the account of the vile journey welled forth smoothly like thick oil. With fixed eyes and fascinated ears she took in the terrible Odyssey. After another sobbing pause--the broken creature was crying bitterly--the voice recommenced, droning on one note until Leah felt that she could have screamed if only to vary the sound.