k, who cultivate their
patches of ground during the brief spring and summer, and struggle
through the long dreary winter as best they can on their scanty
savings and what work they can get to do from the Government or their
richer neighbours.

Colston had never been in Tiumen before, but Ivan had, for ten years
before he had voluntarily accompanied his father, who had been
condemned to five years' forced labour on the new railway works from
Tiumen to Tobolsk, for giving a political fugitive shelter in his
house. He had died of hard labour and hard usage, and that was one
reason why Ivan was a member of the Outer Circle of the Terrorists.

He led his master through the squalid suburb to the business part of
the town, which had considerably developed since the through line to
Tobolsk and Tomsk had been constructed, and at length they stopped
before a comfortable-looking house in the street that ends at the
railway station.

They knocked, gave their names, and were at once admitted. The
servant who opened the door to them led them to a room in which they
found a man of about fifty in the uniform of a sub-commissioner of
police. As Colston held out his hand to him he said--

"In the Master's name!"

The official took his hand, and, bending over it, replied in a low
tone--

"I am his servant. What is his will?"

"That Anna Ornovski and Fedora Darrel, the English girl who was taken
with her, be released as soon as may be," replied Colston. "Is the
train from Ekaterinburg in yet?"

"Not yet. The snow is still deep between here and the mountains. The
winter has been very severe and long. We have almost starved in
Tiumen in spite of the railway. There has been a telegram from
Ekaterinburg to say that the train descended the mountain safely, and
one from Kannishlov to say that we expect it soon after ten
to-night."

"Good! That is sooner than we expected in London. We thought it would
not reach here till to-morrow morning."

"In London! What do you mean? You cannot have come from London, for
there has been no train for two days."

"Nevertheless I have come from London. I left England yesterday
evening."

"Yesterday evening! But, with all submission, that is impossible. If
there were a railway the whole distance it could not be done."

"To the Master there is nothing impossible. Look! I received that the
evening I left London."

As he spoke, Colston held out an envelope. The Russian examined it
closely. It bor