In the Cause of Freedom

I had hard work to prevent myself laughing at the man to his face; and it is no light matter to laugh at these self-satisfied, bullying officials in Russian Poland. Some of them...

I had not walked three hundred yards towards the village when I met the police agent hurrying stationwards at a pace which would quickly bring him face to face with Count Peter...

I lost no time in undeceiving the police agent. “You are plucking unshot birds,” I said. “There is not going to be any arrest either of this lady or myself. You can end the thin...

In the first place, I was now a fugitive from the police; but as I had done no wrong, the fact had a sort of fascination for me. The scent of adventure and the prospective excit...

We kept up a fair pace for nearly an hour, the horse moving at a slow, loping canter, with spells of walking for me to recover breath; and in this way we covered six or seven mi...

“When I had stopped thinking. I couldn’t help it,” she said in answer to my shake of the head. “I was saying my lesson over and over, lest I should forget it. Do you know it?”

Volna was thoroughly at home in the saddle, and it was easy to see that she had been accustomed to horses all her life. She had a perfect seat; and that firm hand and control wh...

A wooden bench, a couple of wooden armchairs, a square table and a black oak chest of drawers with some unpainted shelving over it for crockery, pots, and pans, constituted the...

The suspense of the two or three moments which followed the entrance of the pair constituted an ordeal not to be forgotten. That Volna mastered herself sufficiently to pass thro...

I knew enough of the methods of the police not to lay too much emphasis at the outset upon the fact that they had blundered. The police are pretty much the same all the world ov...

The pendulum of luck had swung over again to our side and I lost no time in taking advantage of it. I pushed the man away from me at random, and chanced to send him staggering u...

I was by no means sorry that Father Ambrose preferred to see Volna alone. It was her influence, not mine, which would have any effect upon him; and it was certain she would be a...

She closed the door behind her, dropped me a little curtsey and said with the demurest of glances: “Did you please to send for me, sir?” Then she burst out laughing and ran to m...

As it was desirable for the success of our plan that I should not be seen when I fetched my horse, the priest pointed out a way across the fields; and then gave me one of the gr...

Outside in the corridor the man from Schirmskad was waiting, and the two drove me to the railway station and hustled me into a railway carriage. They would not say where I was b...

At the sight of the man who had used his official power to give me the lie and then have me treated like a felon my rage flashed at once into a flame.

I could not decide anything until I saw the General; and before I rose he had gone out and had left word for me to wait in the house for him.

“I will answer you. I give you my honour you shall have nothing but the truth from me; but I must first know all that lies behind the question and all that depends upon it. Come...

Volna’s half-sister, Katinka, received us; and the moment my name was mentioned, she left me no room to doubt that so far as she was concerned I was a most unwelcome visitor.

“My dear, dearest mother!” A piteous cry of sorrow and pity; and then a change to indignant reproach. “This is your doing, Katinka, yours and Paul’s and uncle’s; with your miser...

It was quite dusk and the heavy snow covered the sound of our footsteps as we hurried through the shrubbery to a small door in the high wall which bounded the garden at the end.

“If you recognize me, there is no reason for further concealment. We are in possession of the house and my object was to learn the purpose of your visit. I invite you to tell it...

It is never pleasant to have to admit even in the secrecy of one’s own private thoughts that one has been fooled; nor does the cleverness of the fooler afford any but the coldes...

“Oh, I managed it all right. I thought it would be a pity for you to miss anything I could shew you on your last day in the city; and such a day; so I hurried after you. Nearly...

We stood silent for perhaps a minute and I strained my ears for the sound of voices in the rooms near. Not so much as a whisper was to be heard.

“You won’t let them in,” he said, as the hammering at the door increased in violence, and the crowd yelled for it to be opened. “They’ll tear us to pieces if you do. For God’s s...

If Bremenhof had been less of a coward such a plan as ours would have been absolutely impossible. But the sight of the mob’s fury had so saturated him with fear that it bereft h...

There had been a tense moment when the question whether Bremenhof would attempt treachery still hung in the balance. A moment more thrilling than any I had ever known in my life.

The luck seemed to be dead against us. Volna could scarcely put her foot to the ground and, although she struggled gamely to continue the flight, Ladislas and I were all but car...

The members of the Fraternity were charged with responsibility for it; and were declared to have laid a deep and far-reaching plot to destroy him as one of the chief executive l...