Page:Hours Spent in Prison.djvu/95

 “Why carts?” Niemoviecki smiled, yet the idea was also an unpleasant one to him.

“I don’t know. Carts, one two, and on—without end.”

The darkness fell gradually around, and already clouds were passing over their heads, which seemed to gaze into their bent and pale faces.

As the hours passed on, dark figures of dirty, miserable, and ragged women loomed in the distance, as if they had been cast upon the earth’s surface, nobody knew why. They appeared either singly, or two or three together, and their voices sounded quaint and mysterious in the dead silence.

“Who are these women? Why are there so many?” asked Tenaida in a low voice. Niemoviecki was afraid, for he did know very well who they were. The fact that they found themselves in such