those victims of the knout whose friends had not been able to purchase the death-blow — curing them that they should be enabled to undergo such further punishment as their crimes involved by order of the Czar.
There were in particular two men in the world — Count Stravensky and Andrea Ferrari — whose hearts bled for Anna Klosstock, and who had sworn to avenge both herself and her father upon Ivan Petronovitch, if not upon the Czar himself, under whose government such deeds were possible as those which blasted the house of Klosstock, giving over its virtuous inmates to the pangs of exile, torture, infamy, and untimely death.
CHAPTER XIV.
"TRAGEDY."
A group of prisoners on the march, attended by Cossacks of the Dun and Tartar Guards. The wiry steeds and tall lances of the former break up the monotonous line of the travelers afoot, emphasizing the crouching despondency of some and the defiant carriage of others, among the forlorn crowd of human misery.
In the foreground a man has fallen by the way. He is young, and has apparently collapsed through sheer bodily fatigue. The one woman of the group, in the act of stooping to assist him, is thrust back, with the butt end of a trooper's rifle. She turns towards the soldier with a mingled look of appeal and hatred. It is a beautiful face, stamped with a suffering that has no resignation in it. The eyes are sunken, but full of fire. The low well-knit forehead is wrinkled with pain. The mouth is pursed into an expression of angry revolt. If ever the time for vengeance came, you feel that this woman would not abhor the
