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The publisher of this book utilises modern printing technologies as well as photocopying processes for reprinting and preserving rare works of literature that are out-of-print or on the verge of becoming lost. This book is one such reprint.
General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1880 Original Publisher: Lee and Shepard Subjects: Russia Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER X. THE SERPENT TEMPTED ME, AND I DID EAT. IMMEDIATELY on reaching the capital, Major Wolzonn, too, had work to do. It took him at once to Castle Foam. The prince was away. The great gates on the highway w. ere closed. The officer in vain questioned the lodge-man as to the whereabouts of his master. He had returned from his hunt nearly a month before, had remained at home two weeks and gone again ; gone in his own caleche, four horses, a driver, a valet, and two saddles. That was the only information. Something induced Major Wolzonn to leave the capital on horseback before daylight next morning, and drive thirty versts to the poststation beyond the fork in the roads, . where the southern and eastern ways separate. There he stopped overnight, though it was altogether unnecessary, and asked incidentally if the Prince von Meerschaum had passed that way southward, and not returned, within the present month. Receiving an affirmative answer, he started early the next morning for the capital again, after passing a sleepless night; dictated a letter, with many a pungent frown, and carried it in haste to the wharves, where a certain vessel of extraordinary appearance, painted black, with blood-red sails, andchristened "Midnight," was all ready to sail for a trading-port upon a coast below. The master of the boat nodded as the officer stepped aboard, and though he took no immediate notice beyond the nod, he very soon found himself in an obscure corner far forward, very sure that the officer would almost immediately pass him. This was done; the off...