were heard, Melander swiveled his head toward the end of the smithing shop farthest from the gate and spoke:
"Now."
A piece of the darkness—its name was Braaf—disengaged itself and instantly was vanished around the corner.
Next Melander became motion. Across New Archangel for three hundred yards lie hastened, in black reversal of a route he roved one twilit evening a half-year ago. A different being, that Deacon Step-and-a-Half had been, not yet cumbered with a thousand miles of plan.
Outside the Scandinavian workers' barracks Melander halted and drew deep breaths.
For half a minute the rain ticked down on him.
Entering, Melander clattered the barracks door shut behind him, began to shrug out of his rain shirt, mumbled this or that about having forgot his gloves in the toilet, and was vanished out the doorway again.
A person attentively watching this arrival and departure would have had time to blink perhaps three times.
Wennberg had been idly stropping a knife as he spectated the card game being played by three carpenters and a sailmaker. Now he grunted that he too was off to mount the throne of Denmark, if the Russians allowed pants to be dropped on such a festive night, and to the chuckles of the cardplayers pulled on
his rain shirt and stopped into the streaming blackness beside Melander.
The pair of them, tree and stump somehow endowed with legs, moved with no word through the night for two minutes, three. Apprehension traveled with them both. Apprehensions rather, for their anxieties were sized as different as the men.
A several hundredth time Mela rider retold himself the logic by which he had singled this night. Christmas Eve the Russians hail begun, all going around solemn as church mice, crossing themselves tint il it seemed they'd wear out the air, eating no lute until "the first star of evening." (Which baffled Braaf no little bit : "They wait to see a star over this place, won't they have a hungry winter?") Yesterday, it had been a morning of liturgy murmuring out of the twin-crossed cathedral and then the Russian men paying calls on each other, toasting at every stop until by nightfall the streets were full of crisscrossing bands of them shouting back and forth, "You beat to windward, we'll steer to lee!" Now, the pious and visitâtional sides of Christinas having been observed, certain as anything this would be their night of celebrating and carousing and dancing their boots off—up there in Baranov's Castle at the governor's ball they'd be, all the officers and any of the company Russians who frequented their clubhouse for card games and tippling and monotony-breaking argument, every breathing one of them. And when the escapees' absence was discovered, what Russian among them was going to be eager to dash from snug activities to chase Swedes through the
damp black of Alaskan night? And meanwhile the Koloshes would he staying to their longhouses, leaning clear of drunk and boisterous tsarmen.... Confusion, alcohol, reluctance, Melander had them all carefully in rank as allies for escape. Iiut late-going Russians yet within the officers' clubhouse ... racket in the gun room carrying to a sentry at the eastmost blockhouse ... just here, on such points beyond logic, Melander's months of planning teetered, and the quiver of them touched him through the dark.
Wennberg's perturbance was purely with himself. Until he stood up from beside the cardplayers in the barracks the blacksmith had not been convinced he would go through with the escape. Why risk the tumble, ass-over-earhole, down this bedamned coast? Why trust even a minute to Melander or Karlsson or Braaf, these three orphans of Hell? So how came it. that now lie was traipsing off with Melander into disaster's black avid mouth?
Abruptly a barrier of building met the two of them.
As Melander and Wennberg hesitated before the officers' clubhouse, a third upright shadow joined them. Into Wennberg's hands it thrust a heavy sharp-pointed pry bar
"Now."
A piece of the darkness—its name was Braaf—disengaged itself and instantly was vanished around the corner.
Next Melander became motion. Across New Archangel for three hundred yards lie hastened, in black reversal of a route he roved one twilit evening a half-year ago. A different being, that Deacon Step-and-a-Half had been, not yet cumbered with a thousand miles of plan.
Outside the Scandinavian workers' barracks Melander halted and drew deep breaths.
For half a minute the rain ticked down on him.
Entering, Melander clattered the barracks door shut behind him, began to shrug out of his rain shirt, mumbled this or that about having forgot his gloves in the toilet, and was vanished out the doorway again.
A person attentively watching this arrival and departure would have had time to blink perhaps three times.
Wennberg had been idly stropping a knife as he spectated the card game being played by three carpenters and a sailmaker. Now he grunted that he too was off to mount the throne of Denmark, if the Russians allowed pants to be dropped on such a festive night, and to the chuckles of the cardplayers pulled on
his rain shirt and stopped into the streaming blackness beside Melander.
The pair of them, tree and stump somehow endowed with legs, moved with no word through the night for two minutes, three. Apprehension traveled with them both. Apprehensions rather, for their anxieties were sized as different as the men.
A several hundredth time Mela rider retold himself the logic by which he had singled this night. Christmas Eve the Russians hail begun, all going around solemn as church mice, crossing themselves tint il it seemed they'd wear out the air, eating no lute until "the first star of evening." (Which baffled Braaf no little bit : "They wait to see a star over this place, won't they have a hungry winter?") Yesterday, it had been a morning of liturgy murmuring out of the twin-crossed cathedral and then the Russian men paying calls on each other, toasting at every stop until by nightfall the streets were full of crisscrossing bands of them shouting back and forth, "You beat to windward, we'll steer to lee!" Now, the pious and visitâtional sides of Christinas having been observed, certain as anything this would be their night of celebrating and carousing and dancing their boots off—up there in Baranov's Castle at the governor's ball they'd be, all the officers and any of the company Russians who frequented their clubhouse for card games and tippling and monotony-breaking argument, every breathing one of them. And when the escapees' absence was discovered, what Russian among them was going to be eager to dash from snug activities to chase Swedes through the
damp black of Alaskan night? And meanwhile the Koloshes would he staying to their longhouses, leaning clear of drunk and boisterous tsarmen.... Confusion, alcohol, reluctance, Melander had them all carefully in rank as allies for escape. Iiut late-going Russians yet within the officers' clubhouse ... racket in the gun room carrying to a sentry at the eastmost blockhouse ... just here, on such points beyond logic, Melander's months of planning teetered, and the quiver of them touched him through the dark.
Wennberg's perturbance was purely with himself. Until he stood up from beside the cardplayers in the barracks the blacksmith had not been convinced he would go through with the escape. Why risk the tumble, ass-over-earhole, down this bedamned coast? Why trust even a minute to Melander or Karlsson or Braaf, these three orphans of Hell? So how came it. that now lie was traipsing off with Melander into disaster's black avid mouth?
Abruptly a barrier of building met the two of them.
As Melander and Wennberg hesitated before the officers' clubhouse, a third upright shadow joined them. Into Wennberg's hands it thrust a heavy sharp-pointed pry bar
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