I am resolved to visit him before the coming dawn.  But, in order to be as careful as possible, I will wait until the train has passed Tchardjoui, where it ought to arrive at twenty-seven past two in the morning.  There we shall stop a quarter of an hour before proceeding towards the Amu-Daria.  Popof will then retire to his den, and I shall be able to slip into the van, without fear of being seen.

How long the hours appear!  Several times I have almost fallen asleep, and twice or thrice I have had to go out into the fresh air on the platform.

The train enters Tchardjoui Station to the minute.  It is an important town of the Khanate of Bokhara, which the Transcaspian reached towards the end of 1886, seventeen months after the first sleeper was laid.  We are not more than twelve versts from the Amu-Daria, and beyond that river I shall enter on my adventure.

I have said that the stop at Tchardjoui ought to last a quarter of an hour.  A few travelers alight, for they have booked to this town which contains about thirty thousand inhabitants.  Others get in to proceed to Bokhara and Samarkand, but these are only second-class passengers.  This produces a certain amount of bustle on the platform.

I also get out and take a walk up and down by the side of the front van, and I notice the door silently open and shut.  A man creeps out on to the platform and slips away through the station, which is dimly lighted by a few petroleum lamps.

It is my Roumanian.  It can be no one else.  He has not been seen, and there he is, lost among the other travelers.  Why this escape?  Is it to renew his provisions at the refreshment bar?  On the contrary, is not his intention, as I am afraid it is, to get away from us?

Shall I stop him?  I will make myself known to him; promise to help him.  I will speak to him in French, in English, in German, in Russian—­as he pleases.  I will say to him:  “My friend, trust to my discretion; I will not betray you.  Provisions?  I will bring them to you during the night.  Encouragements?  I will heap them on you as I will the refreshments.  Do not forget that Mademoiselle Zinca Klork, evidently the most lovely of Roumanians, is expecting you at Pekin, etc.”

Behold me then following him without appearing to do so.  Amid all this hurry to and fro he is in little danger of being noticed.  Neither Popof nor any of the company’s servants would suspect him to be a swindler.  Is he going towards the gate to escape me?

No!  He only wants to stretch his legs better than he can do in the van.  After an imprisonment which has lasted since he left Baku—­that is to say, about sixty hours—­he has earned ten minutes of freedom.

He is a man of middle height, lithe in his movements, and with a gliding kind of walk.  He could roll himself up like a cat and find quite room enough in his case.  He wears an old vest, his trousers are held up by a belt, and his cap is a fur one—­all of dark color.