in virtue of the Tsar's safe
conduct, which she exhibited. Instead of that she was taken before
the chief of the Moscow police, rudely interrogated, and then
brutally searched. Unhappily, in the bosom of her dress was found a
piece of paper bearing some of the new police cypher. That was
enough. That night they were thrown into prison, and three days later
taken to the convict depot under sentence of exile by administrative
process to Sakhalin for life.

"You know what that means for a beautiful woman like Natasha. She
will not go to Sakhalin. They do not bury beauty like hers in such an
abode of desolation as that. If she cannot be rescued, she will only
have two alternatives before her. She will become the slave and
plaything of some brutal governor or commandant at one of the
stations, or else she will kill herself. Of course, of these two she
would choose the latter--if she could and when she could. Should she
be driven to that last resort of despair, she shall be avenged as
woman never yet was avenged; but rescue must, if possible, come
before revenge.

"The information that we have received from the Moscow agent tells us
that the convict train to which Natasha and Anna Ornovski are
attached left the depot nearly a fortnight ago; they were to be taken
by train in the usual way to Nizhni Novgorod, thence by barge on the
Volga and Kama to Perm, and on by rail to Tiumen, the forwarding
station for the east. Until they reach Tiumen they will be safe from
anything worse than what the Russians are pleased to call
'discipline,' but once they disappear into the wilderness of Siberia
they will be lost to the world, and far from all law but the will of
their official slave-drivers.

"It has, therefore, been decided that the rescue shall be attempted
before the chain-gang leaves Tiumen, if it can be reached in time. As
nearly as we can calculate, the march will begin on the morning of
Friday the 9th, that is to say, in three nights and one day from now.
Happily we possess the means of making the rescue, if it can be
accomplished by human means. I have received a report from Richard
Arnold saying that the _Ariel_ is complete, and that she has made a
perfectly satisfactory trial trip to the clouds. The _Ariel_ is the
only vehicle in existence that could possibly reach the frontier of
Siberia in the given time, and it is fitting that her first duty
should be the rescue of the Angel of the Revolution from the clutches
of the