Читать книгу The Secret Dispatch; or, The Adventures of Captain Balgonie онлайн

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"To whither?"

"Schlusselburg."

The host changed countenance and almost manifested signs of discomposure on hearing of that formidable fortress and prison—the veritable Bastille of St. Petersburg, and he said:

"A name to shudder at—by St. Nicholas it is!"

"And, but for the feather in the wax of my dispatch," resumed Balgonie (showing a red government seal in which a piece of feather twitched from a pen was inserted, the usual Russian emblem of speed), "I had not, perhaps, tempted the dangers of the Louga, but sought a billet on the other side, if such could be found."

"You know not, perhaps, that my woods are full of wolves; but this is not the way to St. Petersburg."

"Yet I was so directed, Excellency."

"You have been misled, and are only some seventy versts or so from the place you have left."

"You amaze me, Count," exclaimed the perplexed Captain; for in the Russian service, an error becomes a crime.

"Captain, you should have gone by Gori, Oustensk, Spask, and so on."

"That devil of a Podatchkine, an orderly of General Weymarn, who sent him specially with me, has either deluded or abandoned me."