and the boy who cleaned the ship's lamps.[1] More than enough money was obtained to defray his expenses across the continent, and when he left the steamer he had not only the sixty Mexican silver dollars about which he wrote me, but a first-class ticket to Washington, and a cordial invitation from one of the passengers—Mr. Allan Huber of Berlin, Ontario—to stay at his house until my whereabouts could be ascertained.
When Volkhófski met me in Albany, he was terribly anxious with regard to the safety of his nine-year-old daughter Véra, whom he had left with friends in the capital of Eastern Siberia. He feared that, as soon as his escape should become known, the Government would seize the little girl, and either use her as a means of compelling him to return or put her into a state asylum, where she would virtually be lost to him forever.
"If I can only get my little girl," he said to me, "I shall feel as if I had strength and spirit enough to begin a new life; but if I lose her, I may as well give up the struggle."
"We'll get your little girl," I replied, "if we have to resort to fraud, violence, false passports, and kidnapping"—and we did get her. In June, 1890, Volkhófski went to London, so as to be nearer the field of operations, and six weeks later I received from him a cablegram saying, "Hurrah! my child has arrived."
In a recent letter to a friend in Buffalo, New York, the well-known English novelist, Hesba Stretton, speaks of Volkhófski and his daughter as follows:
"Volkhófski, who escaped from Siberia rather more than a year ago, has been lecturing in England all winter. He has a charming little daughter ten years old who was born in exile. She has been staying for a fortnight with my married sister and her two daughters, and they are quite
- ↑ The steward became so much attached to Volkhófski, in the course of the voyage, that long afterward, in Montreal, he came to call upon me for the purpose of making inquiries about him.
