Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/561

 . 10, 1860.] 

 if owning himself foiled for once by the simplicity of a true story.

“I can make nothing of the fellow,” he said in Russ, turning to the secretary: “what to do?”

“I don’t see what you can do but visé the passport; I scarcely think it advisable to dishonour the English ambassador’s pass except in extreme cases.”

“This is an extreme case.”

“Scarcely: your Excellency has no proof.”

“But there is strong suspicion.”

“Exactly; and therefore I would affix the private mark of suspicion to the passport.”

Accordingly, my passport was countersigned and returned to me; and I hurried back to the steamer. I found it still at the quay, puffing and snorting, and evidently waiting for me. It was with inexpressible satisfaction and relief that I stepped again on deck, and received the congratulations of the captain and my fellow-passengers, to whom I told my story by way of apology for detaining them beyond the proper time. So far I had triumphed; but I had overheard enough to make me dubious of the final result. “The private mark of suspicion!”—those terribly mysterious words kept haunting me all the way to Cronstadt. How much might they imply? I knew that they portended something unpleasant: I afterwards ascertained that they might involve Siberia and the. I examined the passport at leisure, and tried to detect the private mark of suspicion. I could see nothing. It might be in the form of one of the letters; or it might be in the flourish at the end of the Baron’s signature. I studied the document as I have never studied any similar document before or since. But at last I gave up the attempt in despair.

we arrived off Cronstadt, a number of Russian gentlemen came on board the steamer to examine our passports. I was summoned into the saloon, where I found the Board of Examiners sitting in solemn conclave, with an old naval officer at their head. Now it so happened, by one of those freaks of fortune, or, rather, one of those appointments of Providence, which seem so strange to us mortals, that I subsequently became well acquainted with the president of the Board; and he afterwards gave me a piece of information which it is necessary for my readers to possess at this stage, in order that they may understand the really perilous position in which I stood. It seems, that, just about that time, some attempts had been made to assassinate the late Emperor Nicholas; and, in consequence of those attempts, the secret police were more than usual on the alert. Moreover, they had just been informed by their agents in London that some desperate Poles, who had dodged Nicholas during his visit to England in 1844, but had been kept at bay by the admirable precautions of the English police, were about to proceed to St. Petersburg for the express