He continued his search with his heart heavier and heavier, he had a presentiment that he was on the point of discovering a new misfortune.  The footprints passed steadily under the branches along the side of the Neva.  From a bush he picked a shred of white cloth, and it seemed to him a veritable battle had taken place there.  Torn branches strewed the grass.  He went on.  Very close to the bank he saw by examination of the soil, where there was no more trace of tiny heels and little soles, that the woman who had been found there was carried, and carried, into a boat, of which the place of fastening to the bank was still visible.

“They have carried off Natacha,” he cried in a surge of anguish. “bungler that I am, that is my fault too — all my fault — all my fault!  They wished to avenge Michael Nikolaievitch’s death, for which they hold Natacha responsible, and they have kidnapped her.”

His eyes searched the great arm of the river for a boat.  The river was deserted.  Not a sail, nothing visible on the dead waters!  “What shall I do?  What shall I do?  I must save her.”

He resumed his course along the river.  Who could give him any useful information?  He drew near a little shelter occupied by a guard.  The guard was speaking to an officer.  Perhaps he had noticed something during his watch that evening along the river.  That branch of the river was almost always deserted after the day was over.  A boat plying between these shores in the twilight would certainly attract attention.  Rouletabille showed the guard the paper Koupriane had given him in the beginning, and with the officer (who turned out to be a police officer) as interpreter, he asked his questions.  As a matter of fact the guard had been sufficiently puzzled by the doings and comings of a light boat which, after disappearing for an instant, around the bend of the river, had suddenly rowed swiftly out again and accosted a sailing-yacht which appeared at the opening of the gulf.  It was one of those small but rapid and elegant sailing craft such as are seen in the Lachtka regattas.

Lachtka!  “The Bay of Lachtka!”

The word was a ray of light for the reporter, who recalled now the counsel Gounsovski had given him.  “Watch the Bay of Lachtka, and tell me then if you still believe Natacha is innocent!” Gounsovski must have known when he said this that Natacha had embarked in company with the Nihilists, but evidently he was ignorant that she had gone with them under compulsion, as their prisoner.

Was it too late to save Natacha?  In any case, before he died, he would try in every way possible, so as at least to have kept her as much as he could from the disaster for which he held himself responsible.  He ran to the Barque, near the Point.

His voice was firm as he hailed the canoe of the floating restaurant where, thanks to him, Koupriane had been thwarted in impotent anger.  He had himself taken to just below Staria-Derevnia and jumped out at the spot where he saw little Katharina disappear a few days before.  He landed in the mud and climbed on hands and knees up the slope of a roadway which followed the bank.  This bank led to the Bay of Lachtka, not far from the frontier of Finland.