CHAPTER XIII. 



A SEARCHING CROSS-EXAMINATION. 



WHEN we returned to our hotel, after the visit to 

 the Ekaterinoslav police station, Sascha declared 

 himself " out of mind with trouble." From the way 

 the Chief had questioned him no end of trouble was 

 to be expected, and all the Police Master had said in 

 regard to letting us proceed on our way was to advise 

 us to see the Governor of the province. Sascha's 

 spirits, like those in a barometer in stormy weather, 

 were much given to rising and falling, carrying him 

 into Himalayan heights of bliss, and plunging him into 

 abysmal depths of despair, many times during a day- 

 Though he flung himself on the lounge in our room 

 with the abandon of a person utterly undone, when we 

 returned from the police station, dinner, with a bottle 

 of his favorite cordial, brought him around at once to a 

 rosier view of the situation. The Chief, he thought, 

 had asked him at least two hundred questions, many 

 of which were ridiculous. The catechetical examina- 

 tion, as near as he could recall it, was as follows: 

 11 Who is this man, your companion ? " 

 " He is an American, Mr. Stevens." 

 " How do you know he's an American ? " 

 " He has an American passport and he speaks Eng- 

 lish. I believe he's an American." 



" The passport doesn't prove anything. He might 



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