ty, leaving behind, to swathe the view of them a while and then
fade away, a pestilential haze that hung like an aura about the naked,
long-haired men. It was terrible and magnificent. In order not to be
shoved into the water, Rouletabille had climbed a small rock that stood
beside the route, and had waited there as though petrified himself.
When the barbarians had finally passed by he climbed down again, but the
route had become a bog of trampled filth.

Happily, he heard the noise of a primitive conveyance behind him. It
was a telega. Curiously primitive, the telega is four-wheeled, with two
planks thrown crudely across the axle-trees. Rouletabille gave the man
who was seated in it thee roubles, and jumped into the planks beside
him, and the two little Finnish horses, whose manes hung clear to the
mud, went like the wind. Such crude conveyances are necessary on such
crude roads, but it requires a strong constitution to make a journey on
them. Still, the reporter felt none of the jolting, he was so intent
on the sea and the coast of Lachtka Bay. The vehicle finally reached
a wooden bridge, across a murky creek. As the day commenced to fade
colorlessly, Rouletabille jumped off onto the shore and his rustic
equipage crossed to the Sestroriesk side. It was a corner of land black
and somber as his thoughts that he surveyed now. "Watch the Bay of
Lachtka!" The reporter knew that this desolate plain, this impenetrable
marsh, this sea which offered the fugitive refuge in innumerable fords,
had always been a useful retreat for Nihilistic adventurers. A hundred
legends circulated in St. Petersburg about the mysteries of Lachtka
marshes. And that gave him his last hope. Maybe he would be able to run
across some revolutionaries to whom he could explain about Natacha, as
prudently as possible; he might even see Natacha herself. Gounsovski
could not have spoken vain words to him.

Between the Lachtkrinsky marsh and the strand he perceived on the edge
of the forests which run as far as Sestroriesk a little wooden house
whose walls were painted a reddish-brown, and its roof green. It was
not the Russian isba, but the Finnish touba. However, a Russian sign
announced it to be a restaurant. The young man had to take only a few
steps to enter it. He was the only customer there. An old man,
with glasses and a long gray beard, evidently the proprietor of the
establishment, stood behind the counter, presiding over the zakouskis.
Rouletabil