146 BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.
a rule attired in a uniform kind of dress, which seemed to Philip's memory to be a long, loose great coat of a rough grey cloth. As they left the prison they saw the first gang begin their march, and it was the recollection of this that had enabled Philip to give life and reality to the more terrible narratives of which he had since read and heard incidents on the road, deaths by the way, tragedies en route, during which the Czar had been relieved of many prisoners, the innocent and the guilty, the hardened criminal and the spotless victim of his infernal rule. Philip remembered the heavy rings that were riveted upon the legs of the convicts, one for each ankle, united by a chain, which fetters were linked with others, holding groups or companies together to render the surveillance of their guards easy and complete, as they held their weary way across the vast steppes into the Siberian wilds, where even Nature allied itself with the Czar to torment and kill them.
It did not require much knowledge or imagination to introduce into a group of the poor, wretched creatures that young student falling by the way, nor to bring a suffer- ing woman to his aid, nor to invoke the interposition of the brutal Cossack against both of them. This was the incident upon which Philip concentrated his mind and his brush, and to-day, having promised himself models for these three figures, he still went on painting from memory, a touch here, a correction there.
Unconsciously he found that he was sketching himself as the dying student. Every touch he put into the figure made it more and more like him, but every touch upon the woman he rubbed out again. It was an inspiration, that woman's face. He felt it as such, and now the fear took possession of him afresh that he would never be able to finish it. He therefore came to the wise conclusion not to touch the original sketch again, but to make new studies for any alterations in its development.
