Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/221

Rh could close the door, the horses plunged forward and we were tearing at full gallop out of the town.

For five miles or so we skirted the sea along a level well-made road through a barren wind-swept country whence the meagre harvest had already been garnered. There were no villages. All around was a houseless land, rolling miles of brown and green, broken and chequered by bits of forest and clumps of dark melancholy pines. The road ran ever and anon right down to where the cold green waves broke upon the rocky shore. In a few weeks that coast would be ice-bound and snow-covered, and then the silence of the God-forsaken country would be complete.

After five miles or so, the driver pulled up and descended to readjust his harness, whereupon I got out and asked him in the best Russian I could command —

"Where are we going?"

"To Nystad."

"How far is that?"

"Sixty-eight," was his reply.

I took him to imply kilometres, as being a Finn he would not speak of versts.

"The Chief of Police has given you directions?" I asked.

"His high Excellency has told me exactly what to do," was the man's answer, as he took out his huge wooden pipe and filled it. "You wish to see the young lady?"

"Yes," I answered, "to first see her, and I do not