At the station and at the frontier there were, as the prince had predicted, difficulties, and Deulin overcame them with the odd mixture of good-humor and high-handedness which formed his method of ruling men.  He seemed to be in good spirits, and always confident.

“They know,” he said, when Wanda and he were safely seated in the Austrian railway carriage.  “They all know.  Look at their stupid, perturbed faces.  We have slipped across the frontier before they have decided whether they are standing on their heads or their heels.  Ah! what a thing it is to have a smile to show the world!”

“Or a grin,” he added, after a long pause, “that passes for one.”

XXXIV

FOR ANOTHER TIME

The thaw came that afternoon.  Shortly before sunset the rain set in; the persistent, splashing, cold rain that drives northward from the Carpathians.  In a few hours the roads would be impassable.  The dawn would see the rise of the Vistula; and there are few sights in nature more alarming than the steady rise of a huge river.

There is to this day no paved road across the plain that lies to the south of Warsaw.  From the capital to the village of Wilanow there are three roads which are sandy in dry weather, and wet in spring and autumn.  During the rains the whole tracks, and not only the ruts, are under water.  They are only passable and worthy of the name of road in winter, when the sleighs have pressed down a hard and polished track.

Along the middle road—­which is the worst and the least frequented—­a number of carts made their way soon after eight o’clock at night.  The road is not only unmade, but is neglected and allowed to fall into such deep ruts and puddles as to make it almost impassable.  It is bordered on either side by trees and a deep ditch.  In the late summer it is used for the transit of the hay which is grown on the low-lying land.  In winter it is the shortest road to Wilanow.  In spring and autumn it is not used at all.

It was raining hard now, and the wind hummed drearily through the pollarded trees.  Each of the four carts was dragged by three horses, harnessed abreast in the Russian fashion.  They were the ordinary hay-carts of the country, to be encountered at any time on the more frequented road nearer to the hills, carrying produce to the city.  The carts were going towards the city now, but they were empty.

Fifty yards in front of the caravan a man splashed along through the standing water, his head bent to the rain.  It was Kosmaroff.  He was in his working clothes, and the rain had glued his garments to his spare limbs.  He walked with long strides, heedless of where he set his feet.  He had reached that stage of wetness where whole water could scarcely have made him wetter.  Or else he had such business in hand that mere outward things were of no account.  Every now and then he turned his head, half impatiently, to make sure that the carts were following him.  The wheels made no sound on the wet sand, but the heavy wood-work of the carts groaned and creaked as they rolled clumsily in the deep ruts.