ned to the right and went to the river, where he
earned his daily bread, where his friends eked out their toilsome lives.
Martin joined the silent, detached groups hurrying towards the city.
He passed down the whole length of the Marszalkowska with the others
slouching along the middle of the street beneath the gaze of the
soldiers, brushing past the horses of the Cossacks stationed at the
street corners. And he was allowed to pass, unrecognized.

A group of officers stood in the wide road opposite to the railway
station, muffled in their large cloaks. They were talking together in a
low voice. One of them gave a laugh as Martin passed. He recognized the
voice as that of a friend--a young Cossack officer who had lunched with
him two days earlier.

Soon after midnight he made his way down the steep Bednarska. He had
found out that the Bukaty Palace was surrounded; had seen the light
filtering through the dripping panes of the conservatory. His father was
probably sitting in the great drawing-room alone, before the wood-fire,
meditating over the failure which he must have realized by now from a
note hurriedly sent by one of the few servants whom they could trust.
Martin knew that Wanda had gone. He also knew the address that would
find her. This was one of the hundred details to which the prince
himself had attended. He had been a skilled organizer in the days
when he had poured arms and ammunition into Poland across the Austrian
frontier, and his hand had not lost its cunning. All Poland was seamed
by channels through which information could be poured at any moment day
or night, just as water is distributed over the land of an irrigated
farm.

Martin had procured money. He carried some large round loaves of gray
bread under his arm. The neck of a bottle protruded from the pocket of
his coat. Among the lower streets near the river these burdens were more
likely to allay than to arouse suspicion.

Between the Bednarska and the bridge which towers above the low-roofed
houses fifty yards farther down the river are the landing-stages for the
steamers that ply in summer. There is a public bath, and at one end of
this floating erection a landing-stage for smaller boats, where as often
as not Kosmaroff found work. It was to this landing-stage that Martin
directed his steps. In summer there were usually workers and watchers
here night and day; for the traffic of a great river never ceases, and
those whose daily bread is wrest