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We were again at the spot where we had disembarked. "Let us row to the head of the lake," suggested the Finn. "We may then land and escape them." And a moment later we were all three in the guards' boat, rowing with all our might under the deep shadow of the bank northward, in the opposite direction to the town of Nystad. We kept a sharp look-out for any other boat, but saw none.
"Beyond Nystad," was his vague answer with a wave of his big fat hand in the direction of the dark pine forest that stretched before us. "We shall be there about an hour after sundown." Then I re-entered the stuffy old conveyance that rocked and rolled as we dashed away over the uneven forest road, and sat wondering to what manner of place I was being conducted. Elma Heath was in hiding. Why?
The shipping, however, did not escape; and in the two nights of the 23rd and 24th of July, the boats of the Harrier, Captain Storey, destroyed in the harbour of Nystad forty-seven vessels, amounting to nearly 20,000 tons. On the 6th July the first shot was fired at Cronstadt, from a gun slung on board a timber barge, by Captain Boyd.
How vessels ever find their way, say from Hangö to Nystad, is a mystery to the uninitiated landsman. At a certain place there are no less than 300 islands of various sizes crowded into an area of six square miles! Heaven preserve the man who finds himself there, in thick weather, with a skipper who does not quite know the ropes!
After five miles or so, the driver pulled up and descended to readjust his harness, whereupon I got out and asked him in the best Russian I could command: "Where are we going?" "To Nystad." "How far is that?" "Sixty-eight," was his reply. I took him to imply kilometres, as being a Finn he would not speak of versts. "The Chief of Police has given you directions?" I asked.
Of the three foreign countries which in the eighteenth century blocked the western expansion of Russia, Sweden had been humbled by Peter in the Great Northern War and the treaty of Nystad. Poland and Turkey remained to be dealt with by Catherine the Great. Let us see what had lately transpired to render this task comparatively easy for the tsarina.
The treaty of Nystad was the turning point for Russia, for thereby she acquired from Sweden full sovereignty over not only Karelia and Ingria but the important Baltic provinces of Esthonia and Livonia and a narrow strip of southern Finland including the strong fortress of Viborg. Peter the Great had realized his ambition of affording his country a "window to the west."
Amongst the towns, Bjorneborg, Nystad, Hangö, and Kotka will in a few years rival the capital in size and commercial importance. The last on the list is the Aland archipelago, which consists of one island of considerable size surrounded by innumerable smaller ones, and situated about fifty miles off the south-western coast of Finland.
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