CHAPTER VI

HOW THE WHITE SEEDS GREW

As Pavlof had expected, the following day saw them on the road.

Palma and he, as political prisoners, had the right to travel in a bumping teléga. They both gave up their places in favour of less capable travellers--Palma yielding his to an ailing wife who was following her husband into exile, and Pavlof dividing his among some of the bigger children, whose mothers had failed to convince the convoy officer that they were under twelve. Whatever their ages, their small feet soon tired of the road, and they showed their thanks to the tall man with the pleasant lean face--whose eyes still smiled at them even when the day's march was drawing to a close--by shy offerings of the wild flowers they had gathered during their perambulatory spells.

Their road lay up hill and down dale, through fine rolling country--mighty stretches of prairie land gemmed with flowers, dense forests of birch and poplar with evergreens clustering thick below, and now and again wide fields of corn still green in the ear, and, at long intervals, straggling villages of weather-beaten log houses where the women gave the children food.

The children, indeed, had much the best of it, even when they had to walk all the way and grew very tired before the resting-place was reached. For they carried no burdens, visible or invisible, and, of all that the grown folks carried, the burdens that were not seen were the heaviest.

Even when they were tired the children would break out of the straggling line, and flit to and fro among the flowers, and come back laden with wild roses and bluebells and buttercups and daisies, and prattling with delight in their short-lived treasures in a way that braced weary mothers afresh for the rest of the journey.

For the first day or two both Pavlof and Palma felt even the sixteen or twenty-mile course a long one. The stone bags and casemates of Schlusselburg and Petropavlovsk do not make for muscularity.

But the fresh air was a tonic. The season had been a rainy one so far, and they were spared the torment of the dust. The full day's rest each third day gave them time to recover, and before the first week was out they found the day's march within their powers, though the monotony of it soon began to pall.

They walked side by side and spoke much together, and, bit by bit, Pavlof came to know much of Hope's life in Odessa, and satisfied himself that her marriage had made for her happiness.

It was new life to Palma to talk of Hope Ivanovna to one who knew and understood her, and who was never tired of listening. He could talk of her all day long, her sayings and her doings, her goodness and her beauty; and the fragrance of her memory shortened the stages, and softened the asperities of the road and the discomforts of the crowded rest-houses.

And if Paul Pavlof spoke little it was because he thought the more, and because he had no text so good to speak upon. And in the reeking darkness of the kameras where they were herded at night like cattle, he looked past the cramping horrors and discomforts, and smiled--and showed as yet no signs of madness.

The Great Siberian Road is kin to Death of the Equal Foot as a leveller of distinctions. Here men are equals in most respects, even though the politicals receive an extra few farthings a day to live upon, and have a right to bump their bones to pieces in the springless telégas instead of tramping on their own two feet. Those are matters of small importance, however, in the darkness of the overhanging cloud. To all, the past is equally dead--a closed book; to all, the future is a hopeless blank--a book sealed with many seals, and every seal a sorrow.

In the comparative privacy of the dilapidated rest-house where they lay the second night and all the third day, the burly ex-convict, Ignatz, the man who looked like a carthorse, came to them and asked if they would join a trade union the prisoners had been forming among themselves, and of which he had been chosen president on account of his unique knowledge of the ropes.

This idea of the "artel" was new to them, and Pavlof especially was interested.

"What is it for?" he asked.

"We club funds, barin, and stand by one another."

"What to do?"

"Everything, barin. We help you to buy food on the road, and if you want tobacco or vodka we can get it for you. Later on we can perhaps get chains loosed for those who wear them, but that's not till we're well into Yeniseisk. And when you get footsore we hire a teléga and ride in turns. Oh, the artel is very useful, I assure you."

"Well, those things are none of them much good to us. What else?"

"If you care to risk a bolt we can arrange that for you, barin. But I do not advise it. It's dangerous, and only one out of a dozen gets clear as a rule. The rest pay--with their skins."

"And how would you escape from the provinces if you wanted to?"

"That's easy. Settle down and be good and quiet and mild as milk till you're ready. Start in the spring when the cuckoo sings, and walk away through the woods."

"And to get back into Russia?"

"Ah! That's another thing, barin. I struck north myself the first time, till I got among the Ostiaks, but it is rough work. How much shall we say now? If the artel can't help you, you can help the artel, and the weaker folk will fare the better."

"Very well!--for sake of the weaker folk, and if we want your help we will let you know," which was quite satisfactory to the burly president-treasurer, who pocketed their donations and went away smiling like a carthorse who has just filched a carrot from a neighbour's cart.

"You hope to get away, Paul Ivanuitch?" said Palma, after he was gone.

"I may. It's as well to learn what one can, anyway. The surveillance is very nominal in the provinces from all that I can learn. In fact, they do say that some of the officials wink at evasions, and almost urge you to go."

"How then?"

"They draw the prisoner's allowances all the same, you see, while the prisoner lives as he can in the woods and costs them nothing. They count on the final difficulty of getting across the last fence into the home pasture. I should think his idea of steering far north is probably the best."

"If you get away will you promise me something, Paul Ivanuitch?" said Palma earnestly.

"Surely! I will do anything I can."

"Will you seek out my wife, and tell her--tell her not to grieve for me? I know just how she will take it. She will be blaming herself for having drawn me into it all. And there is no need. Tell her I rejoice in what we were able to do together, and I regret nothing except that we were parted for a time. Tell her to leave Russia and get to London. There is money waiting for her there--at Rothschilds'. I foresaw what might come and provided for it. Tell her to have a letter always at the Poste Restante for me, saying where I shall find her. I will come to her as soon as I can--ay, though I have to come red-handed. You don't need to tell her that; simply say that I will come. You will tell her all that, Paul Ivanuitch?"

"I will tell her all that--if I get away, and if I find her, Serge Petrovitch."

"You can escape if you will, Paul Ivanuitch," he said, laying his hand eagerly on Pavlof's arm. "Promise me that you will escape and tell her all this."

"I would do much to be of service to Hope Ivanovna, Serge Petrovitch. I will do what I can."

"Ay!--I remember," said Palma, looking at him thoughtfully. "Well, I can trust you, Paul Ivanuitch. I would trust you with my life."

"You may trust me, Serge Petrovitch. A man has but one life and he can put it to no higher use than the service of his friends."

And thereafter Palma suffered more cheerfully, in the thought that sooner or later Hope Ivanovna would hear news of him and the assurances of his endless love and devotion.

Perhaps the most visibly cheerful member of all their company was old Gregory of the barrow. In his former estate he was lowest of the low, and of no account. Here, through the fewness of his wants and the consequent equanimity and cheerfulness of his bearing, he walked head above his fellows, and became a dispenser of largesse.

He persisted in keeping as near to Pavlof and Palma as he could manage it, and wherever he might start in the line, before long the squeak of his barrow and the clink of his chains were heard just behind them.

"Hi! You're in a mighty hurry to get there, Old Squeaky Barrow," some would growl, as he pushed past them.

"All right! All right!" he would chirp, with a face like a winter apple. "I like to be in good company, and these two barins are for me."

His barrow was rarely empty, and its most frequent occupant was the small girl with the slate-blue cat to whom he had given rides in the prison yard at Tomsk. She flatly refused to ride in a teléga among strange people. She toddled along holding by her grim-faced father's hand, and clasping her cat with the other arm until she was tired, and then climbed up into Old Gregory's barrow or her father's arms, and prattled away to one or other as merrily as though life were one long picnic, and convicts and prisons were not.

And when "Little Darling," as old Gregory called her, was walking on her own account, or being carried by her father, the squeaky barrow was still never empty. Now it held some other tired child clasping a bunch of flowers; now the impedimenta of some weary mother. And as to largesse, he was for ever giving away bits of brick tea to the women who had children, and scraps of food to the children themselves.

"It doesn't take much to keep me alive," he chirped, when they wondered at him. "You see, when one hasn't been used to much one doesn't need it. Yes! Yes! Yes! Take it, take it! I don't want it."

Palma, too new a convert to altruism to lose himself entirely in thought of others, and unbuoyed by that which had by this time taken full possession of Pavlof, found the going tedious, and more than once broke out into furious commination of the bureaucrats who sat like a curse on the land. Small annoyances fretted him even among the greater ones. More than once he turned and vented his feelings on old Gregory's squeaky wheel, while the old man gaped on him, with open mouth and wondering eyes.

"To the devil with you and your wheel!" growled Palma.

"Ey, ey!" gasped old Gregory.

"Stop that infernal squeaking or keep away, man. It's enough to drive one crazy."

"Ey, ey!" said old Gregory. "I know when I'm in good company, barin!"

"Find it elsewhere, then."

"He's a good old soul and you'll soon get used to it," said Pavlof. "Let us be thankful we're not pushing barrows ourselves, nor even wearing chains."

One afternoon, the long wavering line, articulated here and there with the dancing gleam of a Cossack bayonet, was straggling through a forest of larches, beneath which thick undergrowths of laurel and rhododendron rose on each side in solid green walls. The ground was very broken, great rocks draped with lichens and moss pushed through here and there and shouldered the road where they would. At no one moment could more than a section of the crawling procession be seen. The day had been hot, the stage a long one, every one was longing wearily for the rest-house.

Pavlof and Palma stumbled along in dogged silence. The only sound beyond the shuffling tread of tired feet and the dull clink of fetters, was the shrill cheep-cheep of old Gregory's barrow, and the grind of its wheel on bare patches of rock. Little Dushenka was riding in the barrow, but even she was silent and sat nodding her curly head to the jolt of her carriage in unison with the slate-blue cat's, both just sufficiently awake to keep their places and no more.

And whenever old Gregory looked at them he smiled through his weariness and murmured, "Ey, ey! The little wife is enjoying herself." And the little wife said "Yes! Yes! Yes!" and little Dushenka and the slate-blue cat nodded, "Thank you, little father! Thank you!"

And suddenly there was a stir behind, a gasp of amazement from the prisoners, and in a moment pandemonium--hurtling curses from the guards and the quick reports of their Berdans. One foaming Cossack sprang in front of the gaping line and threatened its broken ranks with rifle and bayonet. The rest dashed into the undergrowth, and their rifles rang through the forest aisles as through the vaulted heights of a cathedral.

A dozen of the prisoners had made a bolt for freedom, by prearrangement evidently and undoubtedly by signal, for they had gone as one man. The rest, innocent even of intention, after gazing for a time with open mouths, sat down in the road, glad of the halt, though possibly in cases regretful at its cost.

And presently the Cossacks returned dragging their spoils with them--three dead men and four more bleeding from bullet wounds, three bashed almost into pulp with rifle stocks. Whether any had escaped they could not be sure till the roll was called.

The captain of the convoy stormed at his men, and they flung back his curses from the corners of their eyes. The prisoners looked downcastly on the bruised, the broken, and the dead, spread before them as an object lesson for future would-be absconders.

Little Dushenka stared with the rest, her blue eyes wide with wonder. And suddenly she scrambled down from the barrow, and ran to one of the bodies, and knelt by it with her cat still in her arms.

"Little father!" she cried, in her fluty treble. "Have the bad men hurt you? Oh, what have they done? Won't you speak to me, little father?" and the little round face bent anxiously over the grim dead one, which yet had been dear to her.

Pavlof went to her where she knelt peering into the dead man's face.

"Stand back there!" stormed the captain, in the middle of his furious harangue to his men.

But there was a stricken little heart in question, and Pavlof paid no heed to him. He drew the child up into his arms and soothed her with gentle words.

"Dushenka, little Dushenka! Your father has gone to be with your mother."

"Has he, then?--truly?"

"Truly, dear. He has gone home."

"Back to Russia?"

"To a much better place than even Russia."

"Is it possible? Then why did he not take us with him?"

"You will go too in God's good time if you are a good girl."

"And Katinka too?" hugging her little cat close to make it quite clear that it must be both or none.

"We must see how Katinka behaves."

"What are they doing with my papasha?"

"They are putting him into one of the carts. But that is only the outside of him. He himself has gone to your mother."

"Ah--truly?" and the little maid, lost in wonder, settled herself in the arms of the tall man with the deep, kind eyes.

"Give her to me, barin," said old Gregory, as the captain came striding up with menace in his face. "She won't feel so heavy in the barrow. I will be her papasha and take care of her now."

"You are not my papasha, but you shall take care of us, Gregory Gregorievitch, because you are good and we like your barrow."

"Now then, which of you were mixed up in this matter?" demanded the captain, of the quivering line.

"You"--to Pavlof. "Whose child is that?"

"Her father lies there," said Pavlof, pointing after the dead man.

"And you knew him?"

"Only through seeing him with the child."

"You had an artel? Of course you had an artel. Who was president?"

Pavlof shook his head. "You know artel rules, Excellency. He who speaks dies."

"I'll artel you all. He who doesn't speak shall---- Stay!" and his keen eyes ran rapidly over the crowding faces. "Yes! I remember. You!" pointing a finger like a bayonet at Ignatz, the burly ex-convict. "Step out here! I have seen you busy among them. Are you president?"

"I was, Excellency. But this was quite against my notions. I urged them against it. It was foolishness."

"I'll president you! Knock off all those chains," he cried to his men, "and bring them here. It is right the president should wear the chains of office."

They prized open the fetters of the dead and wounded, and hammered them on to the burly one's arms and legs, forty-five pounds weight in addition to the five he carried of right--or wrong. Then, chuckling at his Solomon-wisdom, the captain set the convoy in motion, with the decuple-burdened Ignatz as leader, and watched his heavy progression with a connoisseur tilt of the head and a smile of malevolent gratification.

And the abjects, quickened and saddened by this clap of sudden death, plodded gloomily behind the creaking carts. For the carts had become elevated to the dignity of biers, and the motley crowd had become even more of a funeral procession than it was before.