"Keep awake and ready!" The words rang in my ears. I ate my
food and I drank my wine, but it was neither food nor wine which
had warmed the heart within me. What could those words of
Barakoff mean?
Why was I to remain awake? For what was I to be ready? Was it
possible that there was a chance yet of escape? I have never
respected the man who neglects his prayers at all other times and
yet prays when he is in peril. It is like a bad soldier who pays
no respect to the colonel save when he would demand a favour of
him. And yet when I thought of the salt-mines of Siberia on the
one side and of my mother in France upon the other, I could not
help a prayer rising, not from my lips, but from my heart, that
the words of Barakoff might mean all that I hoped. But hour
after hour struck upon the village clock, and still I heard
nothing save the call of the Russian sentries in the street
outside.
Then at last my heart leaped within me, for I heard a light step
in the passage. An instant later the key turned, the door
opened, and Sophie was in the room.
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