"Then you turn back at Tver?" enquired Paul, at length breaking a long
silence.
"Yes; I must not leave Osterno just now. Perhaps later, when the winter
has come, I will follow. Russia is quiet during the winter, very quiet.
Ha, ha!"
He shrugged his shoulders and shivered. But the shiver was interrupted.
He raised himself in his saddle and peered forward into the gathering
darkness.
"What is that," he asked sharply, "on the road in front?"
Paul had already seen it.
"It looks like a horse," he answered--"a strayed horse, for it has no
rider."
They were going west, and what little daylight there was lived on the
western horizon. The form of the horse, cut out in black relief against
the sky, was weird and ghostlike. It was standing by the side of the
road, apparently grazing. As they approached it, its outlines became
more defined.
"It has a saddle," said Steinmetz at length. "What have we here?"
The beast was evidently famishing, for, as they came near, it never
ceased its occupation of dragging the wizened tufts of grass up, root
and all.
"What have we here?" repeated Steinmetz.
And the two men clapped spurs to their tired horses.
The solitary waif had a rider, but he was not in the saddle. One foot
was caught in the stirrup, and as the horse moved on from tuft to tuft
it dragged its dead master along the ground.
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