Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/19

Rh, from a tárantás or a teléga to a second-hand pair of boots.

After exploring the bazar, rambling abont the city for two or three hours, and delivering some of my letters of introduction, I returned to the hotel. Zhan, with a perturbed countenance, met me in the hall and informed me that the chief of police had just been there after us and had left a verbal request that we call upon him at once. Zhan's experience of life had evidently convinced him that a visit from the chief of police, like the appearance of a stormy petrel at sea, was a threatening phenomenon; and although he asked no questions, he looked at me with some bewilderment and anxiety. Upon going to our room I found two cards bearing the name of Christopher Fómich Makófski, the Irkútsk chief of police, a gentleman with whom we were destined to become somewhat intimately acquainted, and an officer who had been connected with one of the ghastliest tragedies in the recent history of political exile—the hunger strike in the Irkútsk prison. So far as I could remember, there had been nothing suspicious in our movements since our arrival in Irkútsk, and I was at a loss to know why we were so soon "wanted"; but I had always made it a rule in Russia to obey promptly the first summons of the police, and in less than ten minutes Mr. Frost and I were on our way to Captain Makófski's house. Learning that he was not at home, we left cards and drove to the central police-station. He was not there. Having thus done all that we could, we returned to the hotel, and Mr. Frost went out again to sketch the old powder-magazine shown