Towards 1
A.M. The Noise Ceased, And We Were Just Dropping To Sleep, When, At
About Half-Past Two
In the morning, our drunken friends, headed by the
lady, burst into our apartment, with the information, in bad Russian,
That a gang of fifty men sent that morning to clear a path through
the deep snow had just returned, and the road to Mazreh was now
practicable. The caravans would be starting in an hour, they
added. "And you'd better travel with them," joined in the lady,
contemptuously, "or you will be sure to get into trouble by
yourselves." A reply more forcible than polite from Gerome then
cleared the apartment; and, rekindling the now expiring embers, we
prepared for the road.
We set out at dawn for the gate of the village, where the caravans
were to assemble. It was still freezing hard, and the narrow streets
like sheets of solid ice, so that our horses kept their legs with
difficulty. We must have numbered fifty or sixty camels, and as many
mules and horses, all heavily laden.
Daybreak disclosed a weird, beautiful scene: a sea of snow, over which
the rising sun threw countless effects of light and colour, from the
cold slate grey immediately around us, gradually lightening to the
faintest tints of rose and gold on the eastern horizon, where stars
were paling in a cloudless sky. Portrayed on canvas, the picture would
have looked unnatural, so brilliant were the hues thrown by the rising
sun over the land-, or rather snow-scape.
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