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Forever homesick, Said persuaded Trubetzkoy to give him a year’s leave with sizable back pay so that he could return to Africa.

Instead, Said found a Russian to take over his indenture, Nicholas Vassilievich Trubetzkoy, a 22-year-old godson of Czar Nicholas, who taught him Russian.

Despite Said being a practicing Muslim, Trubetzkoy drilled him in Christian ritual and took him to Riga midwinter to have him baptized and renamed Nicholas.

For three years, Trubetzkoy and his Turkish-garbed “valet” traveled to Germany and Austria in the autumn, Italy in the winter, France in the spring, and England in summers.

Spring was three or four weeks old, but cell No. — on the first floor of the Trubetzkoy Bastion, Fortress of Peter and Paul, had not yet tasted its caressing breath.