Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/67

Rh combinations of broken language in Mr. Frost's speech that I had to go away and sit down under a tree to recover my breath. I have no doubt Mr. Frost will say that if the mosaic of my conversation did not have as many pieces in it as his, it was only because I did not know so many tongues; and that, in the touching and plaintive words of the Portuguese grammar, "It is difficult to enjoy well so much several languages."

By the time we had finished our game and refreshed ourselves with delicately flavored caravan tea it was after ten o'clock, and time to think of getting back to Ekaterínburg. Our warm-hearted and hospitable host urged us to stay with him for the rest of the night, and return to the city some time the next day; but as we intended to set out the next day for the Siberian frontier it did not seem best to yield to the temptation. The horses were therefore ordered, and at half-past ten the carriage appeared at the door. We expressed to Mr. and Mrs. Nesterófski, as well as we could in Russian, our grateful appreciation of their cordiality and kindness, thanked them for the great pleasure they had given us, bade them good-night and good-by, and drove back to Ekaterínburg. The streets of the city, when we entered it, were still filled with the soft glow of the long northern twilight; but there was not a sign nor a sound of life in them save the slow, measured "ting!—ting!—ting!" of the triangles carried by the night watchmen, and struck, now and then, as a warning to "vagrom" men. I had heard of "belling the cat," but I never saw a practical illustration of it until I came into Ekaterínburg that night, and found a policeman with a Chimes-of-Normandy attachment prowling up and down our street in search of evil-doers. Of course the wary evil-doer fled from the sound of that watchman's triangle as a schooner in thick weather would flee from the warning boom of a fog bell, while the innocent and the righteous drew near in conscious rectitude and were promptly taken to the lock-up.