n account
of the circumstances in the Complaint Book, but our difficulties were by
no means at an end. As soon as Hercules perceived that we had obtained
horses without his assistance, and that he had thereby lost his
opportunity of blackmailing us, he offered us one of his own teams, and
insisted on detaining us until we should cancel the complaint against
him. This we refused to do, and our relations with him became what is
called in diplomatic language "extremement tendues." Again we had to
apply to the police.

My friend mounted guard over the baggage whilst I went to the police
office. I was not long absent, but I found, on my return, that important
events had taken place in the interval. A crowd had collected round
the post-station, and on the steps stood the keeper and his post-boys,
declaring that the traveller inside had attempted to shoot them! I
rushed in and soon perceived, by the smell of gunpowder, that firearms
had been used, but found no trace of casualties. My friend was tramping
up and down the little room, and evidently for the moment there was an
armistice.

In a very short time the local authorities had assembled, a candle had
been lit, two armed Cossacks stood as sentries at the door, and the
preliminary investigation had begun. The Chief of Police sat at the
table and wrote rapidly on a sheet of foolscap. The investigation showed
that two shots had been fired from a revolver, and two bullets were
found imbedded in the wall. All those who had been present, and some who
knew nothing of the incident except by hearsay, were duly examined. Our
opponents always assumed that my friend had been the assailant, in
spite of his protestations to the contrary, and more than once the
words pokyshenie na ubiistvo (attempt to murder) were pronounced. Things
looked very black indeed. We had the prospect of being detained for days
and weeks in the miserable place, till the insatiable demon of official
formality had been propitiated. And then?

When things were thus at their blackest they suddenly took an unexpected
turn, and the deus ex machina appeared precisely at the right moment,
just as if we had all been puppets in a sensation novel. There was
the usual momentary silence, and then, mixed with the sound of an
approaching tarantass, a confused murmur: "There he is! He is coming!"
The "he" thus vaguely and mysteriously indicated turned out to be an
official of the judicial administration, who had reason to vi