CHAPTER XX

SERGIUS

FOR the first time in his life, Sergius began to realise how much his sister Marfa was to him. She had always been so quiet and reserved, so passive, that she had seemed almost a cipher in the family. Tatiania, his mother, with her lively, impulsive temperament, and Clava, with her coaxing, merry ways, had nearly engrossed his own and his father's regard. None of them had paid much attention to Marfa, either in their home in Knishi or during the long journey which already separated them from it by many hundreds of miles.

But Marfa was no cipher. She was a thoughtful, pensive girl, with very limited powers of putting her inmost thoughts into speech. Her mother was so fluent that she was reduced to silence; there was no need for her to speak. At home she had often done all the housework diligently and steadily, whilst her mother visited the neighbours, or read the Bible sitting close to the warm stove. It was taken for granted that Marfa liked work better than reading. A strong sense of duty possessed her, strengthened by a constant study of the little New Testament which her father had given to her as soon as she could read, and which she always carried in her pocket. Perhaps more than any other woman or girl among the exiled Stundists, Marfa understood why they were banished from their native country.

What she suffered when she bade farewell to the home of her childhood, no one knew but herself. Not a murmur had escaped her quiet lips. Through the wretched railway journey, and the still more trying voyage for many days in the crowded convict-barge, she had not uttered a word of complaint. Often she had taken little Clava from her mother's arms, when Tatiania was moaning and praying alternately, and the girl of thirteen would nurse the child of seven until her young limbs grew stiff and ached with pain. The long and bitter winter preceding their exile, followed by the great strain upon her strength during the journey, had at length broken down her silent courage and endurance. The shock of emotion caused by passing the boundary, and witnessing the uncontrollable distress of the whole band of convicts and exiles, had been the last blow on her breaking heart.

The next morning Marfa was laid in one of the telegas which carried those unable to walk, and the march set out again. There were no seats in these rough, springless carts, and only a thin sprinkling of hay was laid in the bottom of each. Three women lay or crouched beside her. In front of the telegas went a convoy of soldiers, and behind them was the band of chained convicts, shuffling along in low shoes, with their heavy leg-fetters weighing upon them, and now and then clanging against their ankles. Behind the telegas came the baggage-waggons, followed by the free exiles, and the women and the children over twelve years of age who were following their husbands and fathers. After these was a rear-guard of soldiers.

It was full summer now. The sun beat upon the dried-up road, and the dust lay inches thick. The long procession numbered hundreds, and at every footfall the fine, pulverised earth rose in quantities, until the whole cavalcade was almost hidden in a cloud of yellow dust, suffocating to all who breathed it, but to those who were ill, this atmosphere was almost deadly.

Marfa lay along the bottom of the narrow telega, with her head on the lap of a convict who was suffering from asthma, and who could only breathe at all when sitting upright. The woman was gentle and kindly, but there was no escape from the terrible jolting of the springless cart, and the dust-laden air which set the asthmatic convict coughing, and shook her whole body. Marfa looked up into her face pitifully, but what could she do and say to comfort the poor woman? Fever was burning in all her veins, and the heat of the sultry sun seemed to scorch every nerve. She was conscious now, and alive to all the anguish of her position. But her weary brain was unable to recall some memory which haunted it.

"Who was it said, 'I thirst'?" she asked, looking up into the face leaning over her, in an interval of rest from the racking cough.

"I don't know, dear," answered the woman; "nobody in particular. We all say it."

"Living waters!" murmured Marfa. "Somewhere there are living waters."

"I wish they were here," said the woman.

"In the cup of salvation," whispered Marfa to herself.

The woman shook her head, smiling bitterly.

When the midday halt was called, Sergius and Michael rushed to the telega, followed more slowly by Tatiania and little Clava. But Marfa did not recognise them. She was lying quietly, however, and the friendly convict was sitting in a cramped position to give her more room. They bought some tepid water from the peasants who brought provisions for sale, and she drank a little, but she could eat nothing.

"What can we do?" cried Tatiania, wringing her hands. Whilst little Clava climbed into the cart, and crept close to Marfa's side.

"Nothing, nothing!" replied the convict sadly. "We have days to travel yet before we reach any hospital. If I were her mother, I'd pray God night and day to take her to Himself soon, rather than leave her alone in a prison hospital. Soon! O Mother of God! Soon! This misery is more than a child can bear."

The halt came to an end too quickly, and clouds of dust rose again, hanging over and travelling along with the melancholy procession. Michael and Sergius fell back to their own places, panting with the intense heat and suffocating air. But what was their suffering compared with that of the women and children, especially those who were ill like Marfa!

"Michael," said Sergius, "do you know how far we have to march like this?"

"More than two thousand miles," answered Michael; "father told me last night, when I was thinking of Marfa. We are to go at a rate of about one hundred miles in six days. We can't get to the end before next February, or perhaps March, if the winter is a bad one and we are detained on the road."

"Marfa can never live through that!" exclaimed Sergius.

"No," replied Michael.

"Nor little Clava," Sergius continued; "she's too young and too tender! Oh, Michael! If we'd only left her with Father Cyril!"

"But you forget," said Michael, "your mother refused to come without her."

They walked on in silence for a few minutes; and then Sergius spoke under his breath, with a faltering voice.

"Michael," he said, "I feel it would do me good to curse the archbishop and the consistory."

"So do I!" exclaimed Michael.

The two boys halted, gazing into each other's faces, till a sharp cry of command brought them back to recollection.

"No, no! It would grieve my father!" said Michael.

"And mine!" Sergius added.

Again they marched on silently, each pondering in his own heart the temptation that had just assailed them.

"You could not have stayed behind in Knishi," said Michael at last; "you must have starved, all of you, or given up your religion. Even if we all die, it will be better than that."

"Yes," answered Sergius; "father was reading to us last night, and he made me learn the verses. I was glad to learn them, for the Apostle Paul said them about himself: 'Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often, perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils by my own countrymen, perils by the heathen, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness!' We've suffered nothing like that yet, Michael."

"No, but we may do, if we live to be as old as he was," said Michael.

"And oh," continued Sergius, with a sob, "the Apostle Paul hadn't got his mother and his little sisters with him!"