"What is your business?"

"A clerk to Ivan Petrovytch."

"How comes it that you speak Russian so well?"

"I was born here, and lived up to the age of ten with my father, John
Bullen, who was a well-known merchant here, and left only two years
ago."

"That will do," the general said impatiently. "Take him to his cell and
search him thoroughly."

Naturally the most minute search revealed nothing of an incriminating
character. At length Godfrey was left alone in the cell, which contained
only a single chair and a rough pallet. "I have put my foot in it
somehow," he said to himself, "and I can't make head nor tail of it
beyond the fact that I have made an ass of myself. Was the whole story a
lie? Was the fellow's name Presnovich? if not, who was he? By the rage
of the general, who, I suppose, is the chief of the police, it was
evident he was frightfully disappointed that I wasn't the man he was
looking for. Was this Presnovich somebody that girl Katia knew and
wanted to get safely away? or was she made a fool of just as I was? She
looked a bright, jolly sort of girl; but that goes for nothing in
Russia, all sorts of people get mixed up in plots. If she was concerned
in getting him away I suppose she fixed on me because, being English and
a new-comer here, it would be easy for me to prove that I had nothing to
do with plots or anything of that sort, whereas if a Russian had been in
my place he might have got into a frightful mess over it. Well, I
suppose it will all come right in the end. It is lucky that the weather
has got milder or I should have had a good chance of being frozen to
death; it is cold enough as it is."

Resuming his clothes, which had been thrown down on the pallet, Godfrey
drew the solitary rug over him, and in spite of the uncertainty of the
position was soon fast asleep. He woke just as daylight was breaking,
and was so bitterly cold that he was obliged to get up and stamp about
the cell to restore circulation. Two hours later the cell door was
opened and a piece of dark-coloured bread and a jug of water were handed
in to him. "If this is prison fare I don't care how soon I am out of
it," he said to himself as he munched the bread. "I wonder what it is
made of! Rye!"

The day passed without anyone coming near him save the jailer, who
brought a bowl of thin broth and a ration of bread for his dinner.

"Can't you get me another rug?" he asked the man. "If I have got to stop
here for another nig