CHAPTER XXIII

MONTH AFTER MONTH

A GREAT change came over Tatiania. Instead of being a woman of many moods, she had now but one—an almost silent but peaceful resignation. Day after day she paced silently along the hot and dusty road, with downcast head, and feet that grew ever more languid. She never grumbled at the heat and weariness, and she greeted Khariton, when he joined her at the étapes in the evening, with a placid smile. To Sergius and little Clava she was more tender than ever in their happy days at home. For now she knew that neither she nor Clava could live through the march that lay before them. In some roadside jail they must lie down to die, and she began to long for the time to come.

With the rest of the Stundist band, the joy of martyrdom was constantly growing and deepening. A sense of triumph filled their inmost souls. They had proved to themselves, beyond a doubt, that their love for Christ and truth was stronger than any other love. A secret peace, passing all understanding, filled their minds. The hymns they sang night and morning were full of an enthusiastic gladness. They chose hymns of praise in preference to any others. Their voices were well harmonised, and the melody of their hymn tunes attracted their fellow-exiles. These, especially the women, sometimes joined in the singing; and it was not often that the convoy-guard interfered with them. The Stundists gave no trouble; on the contrary, they exercised a wholesome influence over the whole company.

Little Clava was gradually losing all her frolicsome and merry ways, and she became a lighter burden to the boys week after week. They had never let her travel with the other little ones in a closely packed telega, where they fought together, and cried and screamed all day long.

Michael and Sergius were saddened. The long march, which had now lasted many weeks, was not without its charm for them. They did not shrink from its hardships. True, they were often hungry and thirsty, but that was the common lot of poor travellers. They were dirty and in rags, that was little and inevitable. They marched barefoot, that was their custom in the summer. They were quite prepared to endure greater hardships than these. They were passing through strange scenery, which had great charms for them. Now winding through the gloomy shades of vast forests; then crossing steppes which seemed boundless; creeping along the margin of swift rivers, and being rowed across them on rude ferryboats; climbing up steep mountain-paths, and going down again into beautiful valleys. They marched from twenty to twenty-five miles a day; not often more quickly than at the rate of two miles an hour, on account of the convicts burdened with leg-fetters, the heavy waggons, and the women walking in the wake of the men. Ten or twelve hours a day they were out in the open air, with the bright, though burning, blue of the cloudless sky above them.

Michael and Sergius, hardy as young bears, enjoyed these long marches. Besides all this, the enthusiasm of the Stundist band filled their hearts. The sober triumph of the men rose to rapture in the boys.

Still, they could not shut their eyes to the grief and misery which perpetually surrounded them. The faces of the exiles, burnt to blackness by the sun, wore a look of stolid despair, into which they had sunk after the first rage and anguish at their position had subsided. Here was a small batch of human beings, some of them dangerous criminals, cut off from all association with the outer world by a living wall of armed soldiers, some of whom were irreclaimable brutes. As they marched on, their living prison walls moved with them, uttering stern threats and menacing oaths. Already each one knew all his comrades, and all that those comrades chose to tell. A profound and stupefying dulness fell upon them. Day after day they marched on like men in a dream; the only break in the monotony being the change of guards at various stages. To-day was like yesterday, and to-morrow would be as to-day.

They knew, too, that, isolated and solitary as they were, there was another band of banished men and women, precisely like themselves, pacing the same road only a few days in advance; and that behind them, week after week, hearts as heavy and hard as their own were beating along the same dolorous way. For scores of years this sad procession had been passing along the Great Siberian Road. They had left traces of themselves, messages written on the dirty walls of the étapes, many of which were undecipherable from age.

The boys' spirits could not fail to be touched by this apathy of hopeless wretchedness. They could feel for it, though they did not feel it themselves. What amazed them was that most of the exiles turned a deaf ear to all the teaching of the Bible, which filled the Stundists with divine courage and strength. They could not hear the heavenly music or see the heavenly light which filled their own souls.

Yet a certain lethargy fell upon them. They walked for hours side by side in silence, only now and then glancing sympathetically at one another, as they took in turns the burden, alas! very light now, of little Clava, who was growing smaller and weaker every day. She scarcely ever set her foot to the ground now.

"What are you thinking of?" asked Sergius one day, after a long silence. The jingle of the clanking chains and the creaking of the cart-wheels had become insupportable to him.

"I began," answered Michael, "by wishing God would let me bear all these troubles, and let the rest go free, but a voice in my heart said to me that could not be, every man must bear his own burden. Then the thought came to me, that was just what our Lord felt, when He looked down from heaven, and saw all the misery and all the oppression under the sun. So He came, and He did bear our griefs and carry our sorrows. Then the same voice told me He was bearing them now, even in heaven, at the right hand of God. Surely, if He shares our troubles, we can bear them. We are following our Captain, and must be like brave soldiers, fighting manfully under His banner."

"Yes," said Sergius, stepping out more energetically; "look at my father and yours, Michael. Always same, brave and faithful. But my mother! And little Clava! We can't expect them to feel like soldiers. They feel the hardships worse than we do. Katerina's baby is dead; and another baby died last night while were asleep. They have put it there, in the baggage-waggon. Only the strongest children will reach the end of the journey."

"Where will the other children go?" asked Clava, with her languid head resting on his shoulder. "Where shall I go, Serge?"

Sergius could not speak, but Michael answered in a cheerful, reassuring tone—

"Why, my little darling," he said, "you know they go to heaven, where there are beautiful gardens, and happy places for little children to live in. Marfa is there; and the Lord Jesus takes the little ones into His arms, and wipes away all their tears, and there is no more crying for ever and ever!"

"For ever and ever!" repeated the child, with a wan smile. "But, Michael, do you hear the children crying in the telega? Why doesn't the Lord Jesus take them all away into His beautiful garden, and keep them there for ever and ever? Oh, Michael, I wish He would take me!"

"Do you want to go?" asked Michael.

"If father and mother and Serge and you could go too," she said wistfully; "I'd be so alone by myself."

"But Marfa is there," Michael replied.

"Ah, Marfa! I forgot," she said, in a tone of content.

They plodded on in silence after this short conversation, until the midday halt was called, when Michael carried little Clava to her mother, and Sergius followed with their bag of coarse food, of which neither Tatiania nor her child could eat much.