getting ever sweeter in his mouth, and suddenly his legs began to feel
strangely numb. Still, on coming out into the yard, he managed to
exclaim:

"The carriage of the Count of Bengal!"



CHAPTER V
KISS-AND SAY NOTHING


The verdict concerning the five terrorists was pronounced finally and
confirmed upon the same day. The condemned were not told when the
execution would take place, but they knew from the usual procedure
that they would he hanged the same night, or, at the very latest, upon
the following night. And when it was proposed to them that they meet
their relatives upon the following Thursday they understood that
the execution would take place on Friday at dawn.

Tanya Kovalchuk had no near relatives, and those whom she had were
somewhere in the wilderness in Little Russia and it was not likely
that they even knew of the trial or of the coming execution. Musya and
Werner, as unidentified people, were not supposed to have relatives,
and only two, Sergey Golovin and Vasily Kashirin, were to meet their
parents. Both of them looked upon that meeting with terror and
anguish, yet they dared not refuse the old people the last word, the
last kiss.

Sergey Golovin was particularly tortured by the thought of the coming