platoff departed from tula; and three of the gunsmiths, the most skilful of them all—one a squint-eyed, left-handed smith with a birth-mark on his cheek and the hair upon his temples plucked out in the course of his apprenticeship—bade their comrades and their households farewell, and saying nothing to any one, took their wallets,[pg 32] placed therein the necessary food, and disappeared from the town. the only point about them which was remarked was, that they did not proceed towards the moscow barrier, but in the opposite direction, towards kieff; and it was supposed that they had betaken themselves to kieff in order to do reverence to the departed saints, or to take counsel there with some of the living holy men who are always present in kieff, in vast abundance.

but this was only approximately true, not the truth itself. neither the time nor the distance allowed of the tula artisans making the three weeks' trip on foot to kieff, and afterwards executing a piece of work which should put the english nation to shame. better would it have been to go to moscow, which is distant only "twice ninety versts," to pray, since departed saints not a few repose there, also. but in the[pg 33] other direction, oryol lies another "twice ninety versts," and from oryol to kieff is a good five hundred versts more. such a road is not to be speedily traversed, and having traversed it, one recovers not quickly—the feet will remain like glass, and the hands will tremble for a long time thereafter.

some persons even thought that the gunsmiths had been over-boastful in the presence of platoff, and that afterwards, when they had bethought themselves, they had lost their courage, and had now decamped for good, carrying off with them the imperial gold snuff-box, and the diamond, and the english steel flea, which had caused them this trouble, in its case.

but this supposition, also, was utterly without foundation, and unworthy of the clever men upon whom the hope of the nation now rested.