The farther north we pushed, the worse became the roads, and snow fell
daily. Only by following the line of telegraph and the verst-posts
could we find the road, which sometimes ran along the Lena valley, and
at others crossed high hills or penetrated deep, gloomy forests of
dwarfed leafless trees.
After three days we approached a high mountain range, where absolute
silence reigned and the snowfall was constant and heavy. The trees were
so overburdened with the white weight softly and quietly heaped upon
them, that many had broken down completely and obstructed the wild road
through the forest. Vasilli had furnished us with hatchets for this
purpose, and we were often compelled to stop and hack and drag the
fallen trees from our path.
When at last we had gained the top of the mountain pass, we at once felt
a complete change in the atmosphere. Whereas to the south everything
was as calm as the quiet of death, in front of us a gale was already
blowing, and instead of trees bowed down and breaking with their burden
of snow, to the northward of the mountain range not a single flake
appeared on the shrubbery or woodland.
We had passed from the world of silence to the wild, bleak regions of
the Arctic blizzard. All that day we toiled through deep snow, the
mountain road rugged beyond description and the tearing wind icy and
howling. It blew as though it would never calm. And the distance
between the two lonely post-houses was one hundred and twenty-four
English miles. Not a vestige of a habitation between. All was a great
lone land.
The frost was intense, and icicles hung from Vasilli's beard and from
our own moustaches--a black deadly cold, rendered the more biting by the
wind straight from the Polar ice-pack.
I looked up upon that awful snow-covered road and shuddered. Luba and
her mother had actually traversed it on foot. Because they had been
marked as "dangerous" the Cossack captain had exposed them to that
terrible suffering, hoping that they would thereby die before reaching
Yakutsk--in which case he would, no doubt, receive a word of
commendation from the Governor.
We were now fast approaching the dreaded Arctic penal settlements, of
which the town of Yakutsk was the centre, distant over four thousand
miles from the Russian frontier, every inch of which we had traversed by
road.
Hour by hour, day by day, onward we went, with those irritating bells
ever jingling in our ears. Petrakoff slept, his head sunk wearily upon
his breast, but my mind was much too agitated for sleep. I had, by good
fortune, escaped the assassin who had followed me hot-foot across Asia,
and now I must soon overtake the unfortunate woman from whose lips I
would seek permission for Her Highness to speak.
Pakrovskoe, a mere handful of huts, came in sight one day just as the
grey light faded. It was the last village before our goal--Yakutsk. We
changed horses and ate some dried fish and rye bread, washed down by a
cup of weak tea. Then, after half an hour's rest, again we went forward
into the grey gloom of the snow, where on our left at the edge of the
plain showed the pale yellow streak of the winter afterglow.
Through that long, interminable night we toiled on and ever on in deep
snowdrifts. Vasilli ever and anon uttering curses in his beard, for the
horses we had obtained at Pakrovskoe were terrible screws.
At length, however, just as the first grey of dawn appeared on the
horizon our driver pointed with his whip, crying excitedly:
"Yakutsk! Excellency! Yakutsk! God be thanked for a safe journey!"
At first I could see nothing, but presently, straining my eyes straight
before me, I discerned at the far edge of the snow-covered plain several
low towers with bulgy spires, and a long line of house roofs silhouetted
against the faint horizon.
Petrakoff gazed forth sleepily, and then with a low, half-conscious
grunt lapsed again into inert slumber.
But no longer could I close my eyes. I drew my furs more closely round
me, and sat with eyes fixed upon my longed-for goal.
Would success crown my efforts, or had, alas! poor Marya de Rosen
succumbed to the brutal treatment meted out to her by the Cossack
captain.
After three eager, breathless hours, which seemed weeks to me, we at
last drove into the long wide thoroughfare which is the principal street
of that northerly town--a road lined by small, square wooden houses,
with sloping roofs, each surrounded by its little stockade. The town
seemed practically deserted, a dreary, dismal, silent place, of which
half the inhabitants were exiles or the free children of exiles. The
remainder were, as I afterwards discovered, free Russians--merchants who
had emigrated there for the advantage of trade, together with a host of
Government officials--Cossack, civil, police, revenue, church, etc.
Without much difficulty we found the Guestnitsa Hotel, a wretched place,
verminous and dirty, like every other hotel in all Siberia was before
the enlightening days of the great railroad. Here I established myself,
and sent Petrakoff with a note to the Governor-General, asking for
audience without delay.
Scarcely had I washed, shaved and made myself a trifle presentable--
though I fear my unshorn hair presented a somewhat shaggy appearance--
when the agent of police returned with a note from His Excellency
General Vorontzoff, Governor-General of the province, expressing his
regret that owing to being compelled to make a military inspection
during that day he was unable to receive me until five o'clock in the
evening.
Thus was I compelled to await His Excellency's pleasure.
The fame of Alexander Vorontzoff was well-known in Petersburg. He was a
hard, hide-bound bureaucrat, without a spark of pity or of human
feeling. And for that reason the camarilla surrounding His Majesty the
Emperor had managed to obtain his appointment as Governor-General of
Yakutsk. He was the catspaw of that half-dozen astute Ministers who
terrorised the Emperor and his Court, and by so doing feathered their
own nests. "Politicals" committed by Markoff to his tender mercies were
shown little consideration, for was not his appointment as
Governor-General mainly on account of his brutal treatment of offenders
during his term of office at Tomsk?
Hartwig, had, more than once, mentioned this man as the most cruel,
inhuman official in all Siberia. Therefore, being forewarned, I was
ready to meet him on his own ground.
Many a man, and many a delicate woman, transported there from Russia,
although quite as innocent of revolutionary ideas as my friend Madame de
Rosen, had lived but a few short days on their arrival at the prison at
Yakutsk, horrible tales of which had even filtered through back to
Petersburg and Moscow.
One fact well-known was that, two years before, when smallpox had broken
out at the prison, this brutal official caused a whole batch of
prisoners to be placed in a room where a dozen other prisoners were
lying in the last stages of that fatal disease, with the result that
over two hundred exiles became infected, and of them one hundred and
eighty died without receiving the least medical attention.
Such an action stood to his credit in the bureau of the Ministry of the
Interior at Petersburg! He had saved the Empire the keep of a hundred
and eighty prisoners--mostly the victims of Markoff and the camarilla!
When at five o'clock I was ushered into a big, gloomy room, lit by a
hundred candles in brass sconces, a vulgar, thick-set man in
tight-fitting, dark green uniform, his breast glittering with
decorations, rose to greet me in a thick, deep voice. I judged him to
be nearly sixty, with grey, steely eyes, a bloated face, short-cropped
grey beard, and very square shoulders.
He apologised for his absence during the day, and after handing me a
cigarette invited me to a chair covered with red plush, himself taking
one opposite to me.
"I have been already notified of your coming," he said, speaking through
his beard. "They sent me word from Petersburg that you were travelling
to Yakutsk. I am very delighted to receive you as guest of my Imperial
Master. In what way can I be of service to you?"
I treated him with considerable hauteur, as became one bearing the order
of the Tzar.
From my pocket I produced the Imperial instructions to all Governors of
the Asiatic provinces to do my bidding. As soon as he saw it his manner
changed and he became most humble and submissive.
"I must again apologise for not receiving you--for not calling upon you
instantly on your arrival, Mr Trewinnard. But, truth to tell, I had
for the moment forgotten that you were the guest of His Imperial
Majesty. I had quite overlooked the telegram sent to me months ago," he
said; and then he read the other permits I produced. "I hope you have
had a safe journey, and not too uncomfortable," he went on. "I
travelled once from Moscow in winter, and I must confess I, although a
Russian, found it uncommonly cold."
I gave him to understand that I had not travelled over six thousand
miles merely to talk of climatic conditions.
But he strode with swagger across the big, well-furnished room, his gay
decorations glittering in the candle-light. The treble windows were
closed with thick, dark green curtains pulled across them. The
armchairs and sofa were leather-covered, and at the farther end of the
room was a big, littered writing-table set near the high stove of glazed
brick.
He was a bachelor, with the reputation of being a hard drinker and a
confirmed gambler. And under the iron hand of this unsympathetic and
brutal official ten thousand political exiles, scattered all over the
Arctic province, led an existence to which, in many cases, death would
have been far preferable.
Upon the dark green walls of that sombre room--a room in which many a
wretched "political" had pleaded in vain--was a single picture, a
portrait of the Emperor, one of those printed by the thousand and
distributed to every Government office throughout the great Empire. His
Excellency General Vorontzoff, as representative of the Emperor, lived
in considerable state with a large military staff, and Cossack sentries
posted at all the doors. He was as unapproachable as the Tzar himself,
probably knowing how hated he was among those unfortunates over whom he
held the power of life and death. For the ordinary man to obtain
audience of him was wellnigh impossible.
The explicit order in His Majesty's own handwriting altered things
considerably in my case, and I saw that he was greatly puzzled as to who
I really could be, and why his Master had been so solicitous regarding
my welfare.
"I have travelled from Petersburg, Your Excellency, in order to have
private interviews with two political prisoners who have recently
arrived here," I explained at last.