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"So long as they let us pass," she murmured. "Any country in the world, but never again Russia!"

"I think you'll find they'll be glad enough to get rid of us," Haven assured her. "If they're going on as they've begun, they won't want foreigners around."

The long train rumbled over a bridge, which was apparently in course of repair, and almost immediately came to a standstill. They were in what appeared to be a temporary station—a long shedlike building with a rude platform. A blaze of lights about a quarter of a mile farther down the line seemed to indicate the real whereabouts of the depot.

"What the mischief is this place?" John Hayes growled.

Haven let down the window to look out, but the rain had turned to sleet, and an icy wind set them all shivering. He pulled it promptly up again.

"Can't see anything anyhow," he announced. "No good worrying. Let's wait and see what happens."

On the other side of them, the outside corridor was thronged with a motley crowd of men and women of probably every nationality and class in the world, who passed up and down slowly and with infinite trouble, like dumb, suffering animals. Here and there was a person of better type, but upon the countenance of every one of them was the same expression of mute and expectant terror. They pressed white faces against the windows of the compartment, looking in with envy at the comparative comfort in which Wilfred Haven and his companions were seated. One or two even tried the handle of the locked door. The whole place seemed to be at their mercy, for there was apparently no train attendant nor any guard. Yet on the whole, except for a couple of fights amongst themselves, which amounted to little more than scuffles, they behaved in orderly enough fashion.