y God! it was meant for me! And I have survived,
while these suffer."

I do not know what instinct prompted me to look behind at that moment,
just in time to see that a man had stolen out from among the pines in
our rear, and was in the act of springing on my companion.

"_Gardez!_" I cried warningly, as I saw the glint of an upraised knife,
and flung myself on the fellow. As if my shout had been a signal, more
men swarmed out of the forest and surrounded us.

What followed was confused and unreal as a nightmare. My antagonist was
a wiry fellow, strong and active as a wild cat; also he had his knife,
while I, of course, was unarmed. He got in a nasty slash with his weapon
before I could seize and hold his wrist with my left hand. We wrestled
in grim silence, till at last I had him down, with my knee on his chest.
I shifted my hand from his wrist to his throat and choked the fight out
of him, anyhow; then felt for the knife, but he must have flung it from
him, and I had no time to search for it among the brushwood.

I sprang up and looked for my companion. He had his back to a tree and
was hitting out right and left at the ruffians round him,--like hounds
about a stag at bay.

"_A moi!_" I yelled to those by the train, who were still ignorant of
what was happening so close at hand, and rushed to his assistance. I
hurled aside one man, who staggered and fell; dashed my fist in the face
of a second; he went down too, but at the same moment I reeled under a
crashing blow, and fell down--down--into utter darkness.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GRAND DUKE LORIS

I woke with a splitting headache to find myself lying in a berth in a
sleeping car; the same car in which I had been travelling when the
accident--or outrage--occurred; for the windows were smashed and some of
the woodwork splintered.

I guessed that there were a good many of the injured on board, for above
the rumble of the train, which was jogging along at a steady pace, I
could hear the groans of the sufferers.

I put my hand up to my head, and found it swathed in wet bandages, warm
to the touch, for the heat in the car was stifling.

A man shuffled along, and seeing that I was awake, went away, returning
immediately with a glass of iced tea, which I drank with avidity. I
noticed that both his hands were bandaged, and he carried his left arm
in a sling.

"What more can I get the _barin_, now he is recovering?" he asked, in
Russian, with sulky deference.