Instinct told him that the men were chasing him hard and obstinately, that they wouldn't stop and that once they had caught up with him they would inevitably kill him. They would kill him because he had turned and run, there was not a single identification paper in his pocket, there was a revolver, and he was wearing a gray coat. They would kill him because men in pursuit might miss once, might miss twice, but the third time they would hit him. Third time lucky. It was a law as old as mankind. That meant that with these heavy felt boots on his feet he had about another half minute, and then it would be over. Once he realised that it was irrevocable, a wave of fear passed right through his body, out of his feet and into the ground. But it was at once replaced, like icy water creeping up his legs, by a savage fury which he exhaled with his panting breath. Already he was glancing wolfishly about him as he ran. Two of the gray men, followed by a third, rushed around the corner of Vladimirskaya Street and all three rifles flashed in turn. Slowing down, gritting his teeth, Alexei fired three shots at them without aiming. He quickened his pace again, dimly noticing ahead of him a slight black shadow pressed up against the wall

alongside a drainpipe, then he felt as though someone with wooden pincers was tugging at his side under his left armpit, which made him run jerkily in an odd, crooked, sideways fashion. Turning round again he carefully fired three shots, deliberately stopping himself when he had fired his sixth round:

'Keep the last one for myself. Think of Elena and Nikolka. Done for. They'll torture me, carve epaulettes on my shoulders with their knives. Keep the seventh one for myself.'

Limping sideways, he had an odd sensation: although he could feel the weight of the revolver in his right hand, it was his left arm which was somehow growing heavier. He had to stop. He was out of breath and he would never get away. Nevertheless Alexei somehow reached the turn of that most beautiful street in the world, disappeared round the corner and gained a brief respite. The prospect looked hopeless: that wrought-iron doorway was firmly shut, those huge double doors over there were bolted . . . He remembered a stupid old proverb: 'Don't give up, brother, till you hit bottom.'

Then, in one miraculous moment, he saw her beside a black, moss-grown wall that almost hid a row of trees in the garden behind it. Half collapsing against the wall, she was stretching out her arms and like the heroine in a melodrama her huge, terror-stricken eyes shone as she screamed:

'You - officer! Here! Here . . .'

His felt boots slipping, breathing in ragged, hot gulps, Alexei stumbled towards the rescuing arms and threw himself after them through the narrow gateway in the black wooden wall. Instantly everything changed. The woman pushed the gate to close the gap in the wall, the lock clicked shut. Alexei found her eyes close to his. In them he was vaguely conscious of determination, energy and blackness.

'Follow me', the woman whispered as she turned and ran along the narrow brick-paved path. Alexei ran very slowly after her. The walls of courtyards flashed past to his left, then the woman turned. To his right was what looked like a beautiful white terraced garden. Stopping at a low fence the woman passed

through another gate, and Alexei followed her, panting. She slammed the gate shut. A shapely black-stockinged leg flashed before his eyes, there was a swish of her coat and she was climbing nimbly up a brick stairway. Alexei's sharpened hearing could hear the sounds of his pursuers in the street which they had left behind. There . . . they had just turned the corner and were looking for him. 'She might have saved me . . . might have . . .' thought Alexei, 'but I don't think I shall make it . . . my heart.' Suddenly he collapsed on to his left knee and his left hand at the very top of the steps. Everything started to revolve. The woman bent down and gripped Alexei under his right arm.

'Just a little ... a little bit further!' she screamed. Fumbling wildly with her left hand she opened a third little wicket gate, pulled along the stumbling Alexei by his arm and began running again along a tiny narrow alleyway. 'What a labyrinth . . . thank God for it, though', Alexei thought hazily as he found himself in the white garden, but now at a much higher level and mercifully far away from Malo-Provalnaya Street. He felt the woman pulling him, felt that his left side and arm were very hot while the rest of his body was cold and his icy heart scarcely beating. 'She might have saved me, but this is the end now . . . legs getting weaker . . .' He dimly saw what looked like some lilac bushes under the snow, a door, a lantern hanging outside an old-fashioned porch covered in snow. There was the sound of a key. The woman was still there at his right side and was straining with the last of her strength to drag Alexei toward the lantern. Then after the sound of a second key, into the gloom of a place with an old, lived-in smell. Overhead a dim little light flared, the floor skidded sideways to the left under his feet . . . Some unfamiliar poison-green blobs with fiery edges flashed past his eyes, and in the darkness that followed he felt a great relief . . .

#

A row of tarnished brass knobs in the dim, flickering light. Something cold was running down his open shirt-front, enabling him to breathe more easily, but his left sleeve was full of a damp, ominous,

lifeless warmth. 'That's it. I'm wounded.' Alexei realised that he was lying on the floor, his head leaning painfully against something hard and uncomfortable. The brass knobs in front of him belonged to a trunk. The cold, so great that it took his breath away, was her throwing water over him.

'For God's sake,' said a faint, husky voice over his head, 'drink this. Are you breathing? What am I to do now?'

A glass clattered against his teeth and Alexei noisily gulped down some icy cold water. Now, very close, he could see her fair curls and her dark, dark eyes. Squatting on her haunches the woman put down the glass on the floor and gently putting her arm behind his neck she began to lift Alexei up.

'How's my heart?' he wondered. 'Seem to be coming round . . . maybe I haven't lost too much blood . . . must fight.' His heart was beating, but fast, unevenly and in sudden jerks and Alexei said weakly:

'Cut my clothes off if necessary, but whatever you do put on a tourniquet at once . . .'

Her eyes widened as she strained to hear him, then as she understood she jumped up and ran to a closet, and pulled out heaps of material.

Biting his lip, Alexei thought: 'At least there's no bloodstain on the floor, with luck I may not have been bleeding too hard.' With the woman's help he wriggled out of his coat and sat up, trying to ignore the dizziness. She began to take off his tunic.

'Scissors', said Alexei.

He was short of breath and it was hard to talk. The woman disappeared, sweeping the floor with the silk hem of her dress, and wrenched off her hat and fur coat in the lobby. Then she came back and squatted down again. With the scissors she sliced clumsily and painfully into the sleeve, already wet and sticky with blood, ripped it open and freed Alexei's arm. The shirt was quickly dealt with. The whole left sleeve and side was dark red and soaking. Blood started to drip on to the floor.

'Don't worry, cut away . . .'

The shirt fell away in tatters and Alexei, white-faced, naked and

yellow to the waist, blood-stained, determined to live and not to faint a second time, clenched his teeth and prodded his left shoulder with his right hand.

'Thank God . . . bone's not broken. Tear off a square or a long strip.'

'I have a bandage', she said weakly, but happily. She disappeared, returned, tearing open the wrapping of a bandage and saying: 'There's no one else here . . . I'm alone . . .'