“Lame one of them,” suggested Simon, quickly.
“Lame a horse! What are you saying?” De Richleau was nearly as shocked at the idea as Simon had been, thirty-six hours earlier, when the Duke had killed a man.
“Say one of them is lame,” amended Simon.
“That is different — they will take them in I do not doubt. One thing is certain — we dare not drive into the town; we could not abandon the troika in the streets, and to attempt to stop at an hotel would be almost as good as walking into the bureau of the police.”
Simon nodded vigorously. “Better try a farm. If there’s a real muddle and the police are after us the farm people may refuse to let us have them again, but if we do as you say, we’ll never see them again anyhow!”
De Richleau roused himself and climbed once more into the driver’s seat. “Ah, what would I not give to be once more in the Hispano,” he said, with a little groan. “Heading for Curzon Street, my evening clothes and dinner. May the curse of God be upon the Soviet and all its works!”
Simon chuckled. “Wouldn’t mind Ferraro showing me to a table at the Berkeley myself, just at the moment!”
De Richleau whipped up the tired horses, and they proceeded a quarter of a mile down the road, then Simon tapped the Duke on the back. “What about that?” he suggested, indicating a low house to the right that had several large barns and outhouses clustered round it.
“Ah!” exclaimed the Duke, starting — he had almost fallen asleep over his reins. “Yes, why not?” He turned the horses into the side-track that led up to the farm. “Why is it, Simon, my friend,” he added, sadly, as they pulled up and he climbed down once more, “that you have never learnt either to drive a pair of horses or to speak Russian?”
“Never mind — we’re nearly through, now,” Simon encouraged him. Simon had not only slept soundly from one o’clock the previous morning till six in the ferryman’s hut, but, while the Duke was driving the solid twelve hours after they crossed the Tavda River, he had been able to doze a good deal of the time. He was therefore feeling full of vigour and enthusiasm now that they were so near their journey’s end.
“Nearly through!” the Duke echoed. “You have taken leave of your senses, my son — we have hardly started on this mad journey of ours.”
The farmhouse door had opened, and a dark-skinned woman, enveloped in so many layers of clothing that all semblance of waistline had vanished, stood looking at them with round, dark eyes.
Immediately De Richleau’s ill humour and fatigue vanished. He went up to her, breaking into voluble Russian. It was evident, however, that she had some difficulty in understanding him — and he her. Even Simon could appreciate that her harsh patois had little resemblance to Valeria Petrovna’s sibilant tongue.
A lad of about seventeen was fetched, also a little girl and an aged crone. The latter regarded them with bleary eyes, and for some mysterious reason shook her stick threateningly at Simon.
De Richleau produced his well-filled wallet once again, and it was obvious that whatever might be the ideas and wishes of the Kommissars, hard cash still had a certain value in the eyes of the thrifty Russian peasants.
The young boy unharnessed and led away the horses, the Duke gave liberal payment for their keep in advance, and soon the two friends were trudging down the track to. the highway.
“Have you considered what we should do now?” Contrary to custom, it was the tired Duke who asked the question.
“How far to the town?”
“Three miles,” said De Richleau, bitterly.
“Come on, old chap.” Simon thrust his arm through that of the older man. “It’ll be all right — don’t you worry.”
They trudged on through the darkening evening; somehow, since they had left Moscow, it had always seemed to be night, the short, sunny days of these high latitudes were gone so quickly.
De Richleau walked in a stupor of fatigue. Simon was racking his able brain for some idea as to where they could spend the night; some shelter must be found, that was certain — they could not sleep in the snow. The hotels in Tobolsk were barred to them in this forbidden territory.
Simon almost wished that they had begged a night’s lodging at the farmhouse, in spite of the threatening ancient and her stick.
As they trudged on the houses became more frequent, until the road developed into a mean and straggling street. It seemed endless, but it gradually grew narrower, and the buildings of more importance. At last they entered a large square.
On the corner they halted. How much Simon wished that this was some provincial town in England. He looked about him anxiously; few people were passing, and these few seemed to be scurrying from one glowing stove, with its attendant pile of logs, to another. Then, suddenly, Simon stepped forward, drawing De Richleau after him.
He had seen a queer figure shamble by — a man, whose dark curls were discernible even in the faint glow from the irregular lamps; a man who wore a strange, brimless high hat, puffed out at the top, not unlike a chefs cap, only that this was made of black velvet instead of white linen.
Simon laughed his little jerky laugh into his free hand. “Now,” he said. “If only I haven’t forgotten all my Yiddish!”
He addressed the queer figure, hesitantly, in a strange tongue. The man halted, and peered at him suspiciously, but Simon was persistent. Forgotten words and phrases learnt in his childhood came back to him, and he stumbled on.
That the man understood was evident. He answered in a similar language, asking some questions and nodding at the Duke.
“He is a goy,” Simon admitted. “But, even so, he is as my own father.”
“It is well — come with me,” said the stranger, who was a Rabbi of the Jewish faith.
They followed him down many narrow turnings, until he stopped at last before what seemed, in the dark, to be a large, old-fashioned house. The Rabbi pushed open the great nail-studded door, and it swung open upon its leather hinges.
Simon kept on his fur papenka, for he knew at once by the Shield of David on the windows, and the perpetual light burning before the ark, that this was a synagogue; although in every way different from the smart Liberal Synagogue in London, of which he was recognized, but non-attendant, member.
This synagogue in Tobolsk was not used for fashionable ceremonies, but as a meeting-place — a club almost — frequented daily by the more prominent members of the Jewish community. Just as in the immemorial East the synagogue is the centre of all life and thought wherever there is a Jewish population, so here, for Russia is but an extension of the East — differing in little but its climate.
The Rabbi led them through the place of worship to the school. A number of persons were present — no women, but about twenty or thirty men in various costumes. They sat round a long table, reading and discussing the Torah, and the endless commentaries upon it; just as their progenitors had, in this or similar synagogues, for upwards of three thousand years.
Their guide took them to an elderly man, evidently the chief Rabbi, whose white curls fell beneath his high velvet hat on to his shoulders.
Soft words were spoken in the guttural Yiddish tongue. “It is the house of God,” said the old Rabbi. “Peace be upon you.”
Simon and the Duke found a warm corner near the stove, and a young man brought them a large platter each of smoked salmon — that age-old Jewish dish. They both agreed that it could not have been better cured if it had been served at Claridge’s or the Ritz. With it were wheaten cakes and tea.
After, they sat talking a little in low tones, but De Richleau’s answers became shorter and more infrequent, until Simon saw that he had dropped asleep.