alled at Soudeikin's house to see if all was right, and
had discovered the tragedy that had taken place. He looked back and
saw a body of Cossacks galloping down the main street towards the
guard-house, waving their lanterns and brandishing their spears above
their heads.

"Whip up, Ivan, they will be on us in a couple of minutes!" he cried
and Ivan swung his long whip out over his horses' ears, and shouted
at them till they put their heads down and tore over the smooth snow
in gallant style.

By the time the race for life or death really began they had a good
mile start, and as they had only four more to go Ivan did not spare
his cattle, but plied whip and voice with a will till the trees
whirled past in a continuous dark line, and the sleigh seemed to fly
over the snow almost without touching it.

Still the Cossacks gained on them yard by yard, till at the end of
the fourth mile they were less than three hundred yards behind. Then
Colston leant over the back of the sleigh, and taking the best aim he
could, sent half a dozen shots among them. He saw a couple of the
flying figures reel and fall, but their comrades galloped heedlessly
over them, yelling wildly at the tops of their voices, and every
moment lessening the distance between themselves and the sleigh.

Colston fired a dozen more shots into them, and had the satisfaction
of seeing three or four of them roll into the snow. At the same time
he put a whistle to his lips, and blew a long shrill call that
sounded high and clear above the hoarse yells of the Cossacks.

Their pursuers were now within a hundred yards of them, and Natasha,
speaking for the first time since the race had begun, said--

"I think I can do something now."

As she spoke she leaned out of the sleigh sideways, and began firing
rapidly at the Cossacks. Shot after shot told either upon man or
beast, for the daughter of Natas was one of the best shots in the
Brotherhood; but before she had fired a dozen times a bright gleam of
white light shot downwards over the trees, apparently from the
clouds, full in the faces of their pursuers.

Involuntarily they reined up like one man, and their yells of fury
changed in an instant into a general cry of terror. The Cossacks are
as brave as any soldiers on earth, and they can fight any mortal foe
like the fiends that they are, but here was an enemy they had never
seen before, a strange, white, ghostly-looking thing that floated in
the clouds and gla