hen evening approached, they paddled to the shore near a
village, and Luka, whose Tartar face was in keeping with his dress, went
boldly in and purchased tobacco, tea, and flour, and a large block of
salt, occasionally bringing off a joint of meat, for which the price was
only four kopecks, or about a penny a pound; five kopecks being worth
about three halfpence according to the rate of exchange. A hundred
kopecks go to the rouble; the silver rouble being worth from two and
tenpence to three shillings and twopence, the paper rouble about two
shillings.

At first Godfrey had steered half the night and Luka the other half, but
after the second night they gave this up as a waste of labour, as the
boat generally drifted along near the middle of the river, and even had
it floated in-shore no harm would have been done. The fox skins made
them a soft bed, and they spread a couple of the large skins over the
boat and were perfectly warm and comfortable. Godfrey thought that on an
average they did a hundred and twenty miles a day. On the eighth day the
river, which had been widening gradually, flowed into another and
greater stream, the Yenesei. Hitherto they had been travelling almost
due west, but the Yenesei ran north. As they floated down they had
had much conversation as to their plans. It was now nearly the end of
August, and it would not be long before winter was upon them. Another
month and the Yenesei would be frozen, and they would be obliged to
winter. The question was where should they do so?

[Illustration: SPEARING FISH BY TORCH-LIGHT.]

Now they were on the Yenesei Luka was on his native river, though his
home was fully a thousand miles higher up. Godfrey had at first proposed
that he should disembark here and make his way up the banks home, but
the offer filled Luka with indignation.

"What are you going to do without me?" he asked. "You can talk a little
Tartar, quite enough to get on among my people, but how could you get on
with the Ostjaks? Besides, even if I were to leave you, and I would
rather die than do that, I could not go to my home, for in my native
village I should be at once arrested and sent back to the mines. I might
live among other Tartars, but what good would that be? They would be
strangers to me. Why should I leave you, who have been more than a
brother to me, to go among strangers? No, wherever you go I shall go
with you, and when you get to your own land I shall be your servant. You
c