CHAPTER V.
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.
The stay at the post-houses was very short. As soon as the vehicles wereseen coming along the straight level road, the first set of horses werebrought out, and the leading tarantass was ready to proceed in two orthree minutes. The other horses were changed as quickly, and in lessthan ten minutes from their arrival the whole were on their way again.While the horses were being changed the prisoners were permitted to getout and stretch their legs, but were not allowed to exchange a word witheach other or with anyone else. At every fourth stage a bowl of soupwith a hunch of bread was brought to each prisoner by one of the guardsat the ostrov or prison, where the convicts were lodged as they camealong. There were rugs in the vehicles to lay over them at night whenthe air was sharp and chilly, although in the day the sun had greatpower, and the dust rose in clouds under the horses' feet.
There was little of interest to be seen on the journey. Only round thevillages was there any cultivation, and the plains stretched awayunbroken save by small groups of cattle, horses, and sheep. AlthoughGodfrey had not minded the shaking of the springless vehicle for thefirst stage or two, he felt long before he reached the journey's end asif every bone was dislocated. As a rule the road was good, but in someplaces, where it passed through swampy tracts, it had given in thespring thaw, and had been cut into deep ruts. Here the shaking as theypassed along at night was tremendous. Godfrey and his companion weredashed against each other or against the sides with such force thatGodfrey several times thought his skull was fractured, and he was indeedthankful when, after forty hours on the road, they drove into Tiumen.
Tiumen is a town of over 15,000 inhabitants, and is the first townarrived at in Siberia proper, the frontier between Russia and thatcountry running between Ekaterinburg and that town. Here the prisonerswere at once placed on board a steamer, and Godfrey was glad indeed tothrow himself down upon the bed, where he slept without waking until thesteamer got under way in the morning. He was delighted to see that theport-hole was not, as in the first boat, blocked by an outside shutter,but that he could look out over the country as they passed along. For atime the scenery was similar to that which they had been passing over,bare and desolate; but it presently assumed a different character;fields of green wheat stretched away from the river side;comfortable-looking little villages succeeded each other rapidly as thesteamer passed along, and save for the difference of architecture andthe peculiar green domes and pinnacles of the little churches he mighthave been looking over a scene in England.
The river was about two hundred yards wide here, a smooth and placidstream. The steamer did not proceed at any great pace, as it was towingbehind it one of the heavy convict barges, and although the passage isordinarily performed in a day and a half, it took them nearly a daylonger to accomplish, and it was not until late in the afternoon of thethird day that Tobolsk came in sight. Through his port-hole Godfreyobtained a good view of the town, containing nearly 30,000 inhabitants,with large government buildings, and a great many houses built of stone.It is built in a very unhealthy position, the country round beingexceedingly low and marshy. After passing Tobolsk they entered the Obi,one of the largest rivers in Asia. The next morning the steamer againstarted for her sixteen-hundred-mile journey to Tomsk. The journeyoccupied eight days, the convict barge having been left behind atTobolsk.
The time passed tediously to Godfrey, for the banks were low and flat,villages were very rare, and the steamer only touched at three places.Herds of horses were seen from time to time roaming untended over thecountry. The only amusement was in watching the Ostjaks, the natives ofthe banks of the Obi. These people have no towns or villages, but livein rough tents made of skins. He saw many of them fishing from theirtiny canoes, but the steamer did not pass near enough to them to enablehim to get a view of them, as they generally paddled away towards theshore as the steamer approached. He heard afterwards that they arewonderfully skilful in the use of the bow, which they use principallyfor killing squirrels and other small animals. These bows are six feetlong, the arrows four feet. The head is a small iron ball, so as to killwithout injuring the fur of small animals, and the feats recorded of theEnglish archers of old times are far exceeded by the Ostjaks. Even atlong distances they seldom fail to strike a squirrel on the head, andGodfrey was informed by a man who had been present that he saw an Ostjakshoot an arrow high into the air, and cut it in two with another arrowas it descended, a feat that seemed to him altogether incredible, but isconfirmed by the evidence of Russian travellers.
Tomsk is situated on the river Tom, an affluent of the Obi. The town isabout the same size as Tobolsk; the climate of the district isconsidered the best in Siberia; the land is fertile, and among themountains are many valuable mines. Although a comparatively smallprovince in comparison to Tobolsk on one side and Yeneseisk on theother, it contains an area of half a million square miles, and,excluding Russia, is bigger than any two countries of Europe together.It contains a rural population of 725,000-130,000 natives, chieflyTartars and Kalmucs, and 30,000 troops.
Here Godfrey was landed, and marched to the prison. Of these there aretwo, the one a permanent convict establishment, the other for thetemporary detention of prisoners passing through. Godfrey slipped a fewroubles into the hand of his guard, for his watch, money, and the otherthings in his pockets had been restored to him before starting on hisjourney. After two days' stop in the prison the journey was continued asbefore, a soldier sitting by the driver, a police-officer taking theplace of the soldier who had before accompanied him. He began to speakto Godfrey as soon as they started.
"We are not so strict now," he said. "You will soon be across the lineinto Eastern Siberia, and you will no longer meet people through whomyou might send messages or letters. As to escape, that would be out ofthe question since you left Ekaterinburg, for none can travel either bysteamer or post without a permit, or even enter an inn, and the documentmust be shown at every village."
"But I suppose prisoners do escape sometimes," Godfrey said.
"There have not been a dozen escapes in the last fifty years," thepoliceman said. "There are great numbers get away from their prisons oremployments every year, but the authorities do not trouble about them;they may take to the mountains or forests, and live on game for a fewmonths in summer, but when winter arrives they must come in and givethemselves up."
"What happens to them then?" Godfrey asked.
"Perhaps nothing but solitary confinement for a bit, perhaps a beatingwith rods, just according to the temper of the chief official at thetime. Perhaps if it is a bad case they are sent to the mines for a bit;that is what certainly happens when they are political prisoners."
"Why can't they get right away?"
"Where are they to go to?" the officer said with a laugh. "To the souththere are sandy deserts where they would certainly die of thirst; to thenorth trackless forests, cold that would freeze a bullock solid in anight, great rivers miles wide to cross, and terrible morasses, to saynothing of the wolves who would make short work of you. The nativetribes to the west, and the people of the desert, are all fierce andsavage, and would kill anyone who came among them merely for hisclothes; and, besides, they get a reward from government for everyescaped prisoner they bring in alive or dead. No, we don't want bolts orbars to keep prisoners in here. The whole land is a prison-house, andthe prisoners know well enough that it is better to live under a roofand to be well fed there than to starve in the forest, with theprospect of a flogging at the end of their holiday. Still there arethousands take to the woods in the summer. The government does not care.Why should it? It is spared the expense of feeding them, and if theystarve to death or kill each other off in their quarrels (for thegreater part of them would think no more of taking life than of killinga fowl) there is an end of all further trouble about them, for youunderstand, it is only the men who have life sentences, the murderers,and so on, that attempt to run away; the short-sentence men are not suchfools.
"No," he went on
kindly, seeing that Godfrey looked depressed at what hehad heard; "whatever you do don't think of running away. If you behavewell, and gain the good opinion of the authorities, you won't findyourself uncomfortable. You will be made a clerk or a store-keeper, andwill have a good deal of liberty after a time. If you try to run away,you will probably be sent to the mines; and though it is not so badthere as they say, it is bad enough."
But even this prospect was not very cheering to Godfrey. Hitherto it hadseemed to him that there could be no real difficulty, although theremight be many hardships and privations, in making his escape from sovast a prison. He had told himself that it must be possible to evadepursuit in so vast a region; but now it seemed that nature had set sostrong a wall round the country that the Russians did not even troublethemselves to pursue, confident that in time the prisoners must comeback again. But he was not silent long. With the buoyancy of youth heput the question aside for the present with the reflection, "Where thereis a will there is a way; anyhow some fellows have got away, and if theyhave done it, I can."
Godfrey had not as yet realized his situation; the sentence "for life"had fallen upon his ears but not upon his mind; he still viewed thematter as he might have viewed some desperate scrape at school. He had,as he would have said, put his foot in it horribly; but that he shouldreally have to pass his whole life in these wilds, should never seeEngland again, his father, mother, or sisters, was a thing that his mindabsolutely refused to grasp. "Of course I shall get away somehow." Thishad been the refrain that was constantly running through his mind, andeven now a satisfactory reply to the assertion that not a dozen men hadmade their escape at once occurred to him. There was no motive to inducethem to make their escape. They could not return to Russia, and in anyother country they would be even more in exile than here, where everyonespoke their language, and where, as far as he had seen, the climate wasas good as that of Russia, and the country no more flat and ugly.
"There is nothing they can want to escape for," he repeated to himself."I have everything to escape for, and I mean to do it." Having oncere-established that view to his satisfaction, he began to chat awaycheerfully again to his companion. "It is not everyone," he said, "whopossesses my advantages, or who can travel five or six thousand miles byrail, steamer, and carriage, without ever having to put his hand in hispocket for a single kopec. The only objection to it is that they don'tgive me a return ticket."
"That is an objection," the policeman agreed, smiling.
"We are not going to travel night and day, as we did betweenEkaterinburg and Tiumen, I hope?"
"Oh, no; we shall only travel while it is light."
"Well, that is a comfort. It was bad enough for that short distance. Itwould be something awful if it had to be kept up for a fortnight. Howlong shall we be before we get to Irkoutsk?"
"About a month. I know nothing as to what will be done with you beyondthat. You may, for anything I know, go to the mines at Nertchinsk, whichare a long distance east beyond Irkoutsk; or you may go to Verkhoyansk,a Yakout settlement 3000 miles from Irkutsk, within the Arctic Circle.There are lots of these penal settlements scattered over the country.They do not send the ordinary convict population there. There is nodanger from them; but the theory is that the politicals are alwaysplotting, and therefore they are for the most part sent where by nopossibility can they get up trouble."
Godfrey set his lips hard together and asked no questions for the nexthalf-hour. Although the journey was not continued by night the telegawas still Godfrey's constant place of abode. Sometimes it was wheeledunder a shed, sometimes it stood in the road, but in all cases thepoliceman was by his side night and day. Godfrey was indifferent whetherhe slept in a bed or in the telega, which, when the straw was freshshaken up and a couple of rugs laid upon it, was by no meansuncomfortable. The nights were not cold and no rain had fallen since heleft Nijni. He further reflected that probably there would be fleas andother vermin in the post-houses, and that altogether he was a gainerinstead of a loser by the regulation.
He was pleased with the appearance of Atchinsk, a bright little town aday's journey from Tomsk. It was, like all the Siberian towns, built ofwood, but the houses were all painted white or gray, picked out withbright colours. It stood in the middle of a large grass plain, withinclosed meadows of luxuriant herbage and bright flowers, among whichlarge numbers of sheep and cattle were feeding. Beyond this the countryagain became dull and monotonous. Krasnoiarsk was the next town reached.Between this town and Kansk the country was again cultivated.
Scarce a day passed without large gangs of convicts being overtaken onthe road. For some distance Godfrey suffered terribly from mosquitoes,which swarmed so thickly that the peasants working in the fields wereobliged to wear black veils over their faces. Fortunately he had beenwarned by his guard at Atchinsk that there would be trouble with thesepests on further, and the man had, at his request, bought for him a fewyards of muslin, under which they sat during the day and spread overthe telega at night. It was, however, a long and dreary journey, andGodfrey was heartily glad when at last they saw the domes of Irkoutsk, acity of fifty thousand inhabitants.
They drove rapidly through the town to the prison, where he was placedin a cell by himself. The morning after his arrival the warder enteredwith a man carrying a basin and shaving apparatus.
"Confound it!" Godfrey muttered. "I have been expecting this ever sinceI saw the first gang of convicts, but I hoped they did not do it to us."
It was of course useless to remonstrate. His hair, which had grown to agreat length since he left St. Petersburg, was first cut short; then thebarber lathered his head and set to work with a razor. Godfrey wonderedwhat his particular style of hair was going to be. He had noticed thatall the convicts were partially shaved. Some were left bare from thecentre of the head down one side; others had the front half of the headshaved, while the hair at the back was left; some had only a ridge ofhair running along the top of the head, either from the forehead to thenape of the neck or from one ear to the other.
"He is shaving me like a monk," he said to himself as the workproceeded. "Well, I think that is the best after all, for with a cap onit won't show."
When the barber had done he stepped back and surveyed Godfrey with anair of satisfaction; while the jailer, as he wrote down the particularsin a note-book, grinned. Godfrey passed his hand over his head and foundthat, as he supposed, he had been shaved half-way down to the ears; butin the middle of this bald place the barber had left a patch of hairabout the size of half-a-crown which stood up perfectly erect. He burstinto a shout of laughter, in which the other two men joined. The jailerpatted him approvingly on the shoulder. "Bravo, young fellow!" he said,pleased at seeing how lightly Godfrey took it, for many of the exileswho had stood bravely the loss of their liberty were completely brokendown by the loss of a portion of their hair, which branded them whereverthey went as convicts.
Godfrey was then taken out into a large court-yard and out through agate into another inclosure. This had evidently been added but a veryshort time to the precincts of the prison. It was of considerable size,being four or five acres in extent, and was surrounded on three sides bya palisade some fourteen feet in height, of newly-sawn timber. The wallof the prison formed the fourth side of the square. In each corner ofthe inclosure was placed a clump of six little wooden huts. Two lowfences ran across the inclosure at right angles to each other, dividingthe space into four equal squares. Where the fences crossed each otherthere was an inclosure a few yards across, and in this were twosentry-boxes with soldiers, musket in hand, standing by them. A few menwere listlessly moving about, while others were digging and working insmall garden patches into which the inclosures were divided. Thepoliceman who accompanied Godfrey led him to one of the little huts. Heopened the door and went in. A young man was sitting there.
"I have brought you a companion," the policeman said. "He will shareyour hut with you. You can teach him what is required." With this briefintroduction he closed the door behind him
and left. The young man hadrisen, and he and Godfrey looked hard at each other.
"Surely we have met before!" the prisoner said. "I know your face quitewell."
"And I know yours also," Godfrey replied.
"Now that you speak I know you. You are the young Englishman, GodfreyBullen."
"I am," Godfrey replied; "and you?"
"Alexis Stumpoff."
"So it is!" Godfrey exclaimed in surprise, and, delighted at thismeeting, they shook hands cordially.
"But what are you here for?" Godfrey asked. "I thought that you hadobtained an appointment at Tobolsk."
"Yes, I was sent out as assistant to the doctor of one of the prisons. Isuppose you understood that it was not the sort of appointment one wouldchoose."
"I was certainly surprised when I heard that you were going so faraway," Godfrey said, "as my friends told me that you had property. Itseemed almost like going into banishment."
"That was just what it was," the young doctor laughed. "I had been toooutspoken in my political opinions, and one or two of our set had beenarrested and sent out here; and when I was informed, on the day after Ipassed my examinations, that I was appointed to a prison at Tobolsk, itwas also intimated to me that it would be more agreeable to go there inthat capacity than as a prisoner. As I was also of that opinion, and as,to tell you the truth, some of our friends were for pushing matters agood deal farther than I cared about doing, I was not altogether sorryto get out of it."
"But how is it that you are here as a prisoner?" Godfrey asked.
"That is more than I can tell you. Some two months ago the governor ofthe prison entered my room with two warders, and informed me brieflythat I was to be sent here as a prisoner. I had ten minutes given me topack up my things for the journey, and half an hour later was in thecabin of a steamer, with a Cossack at the door. What it was for, Heavenonly knows. I had never broken any regulations, never spoken to apolitical prisoner when in the hospital except to ask him medicalquestions, and had never opened my lips on politics to a soul there."
"I think perhaps I can enlighten you," Godfrey said; and he related tohim the attempt to blow up the emperor at the Winter Palace, and thefate of Petroff Stepanoff and Akim Soushiloff.
"That does indeed explain it," Alexis said. "I was very intimate withboth of them, and it is quite enough to have been intimate with two menengaged in a plot against the life of the Czar to ensure one a visit toSiberia. So that is it! I have thought of everything, and it seemed tome that it must have been something at St. Petersburg--that my name hadbeen found on a list when some of the Nihilists were arrested, orsomething of that sort; for I certainly did join them, but that wasbefore there was any idea of taking steps against the Czar. No wonderyou are here, after being mixed up in that escape of Valerian Ossinsky,and then being caught again with four Nihilists just after that terribleattempt to blow up the Czar. I wonder they did not hang you."
"I wonder too," Godfrey said. "I suppose if I had been a year or twoolder they would have done so; but I can assure you I had not theslightest idea that Petroff and Akim were Nihilists. I do think that thecountry is horribly misgoverned, but as a foreigner that was no businessof mine; and however strongly I felt, I would have had nothing to dowith men who tried to gain their end by assassination. I was just asinnocent in the affair of Ossinsky. I behaved like a fool, I grant, butthat was all. I had met the woman, who as I now know was SophiaPerovskaia, but she was only known to me then from having met her oncein Petroff and Akim's room, and she was introduced to me as Akim'scousin Katia. I met her at the Opera-house, and she told me acock-and-bull story about a young officer who had come to see a ladythere, and had left his regiment at Moscow without leave to do so. Hiscolonel, who was at the Opera-house, had heard of his being there andwas looking for him, and I was persuaded to change dominoes with him toenable him to slip off."
"Oh that was it!" Alexis said. "I wondered how you got mixed up in theaffair, and still more why they let you out after your having beencaught in what they considered a serious business. Well, here we are,victims both, and it is a curious chance that has thrown us togetheragain."
"Well, what is our life here?" Godfrey asked.
Alexis shrugged his shoulders. "As a life it is detestable, though wereit for a short time only there would be nothing to grumble about. We arefairly fed; we have each a patch of ground, where we can growvegetables. The twelve men in these huts can visit and talk to eachother. When that is said all is said. Oh, by the way, we are alsopermitted to make anything we like! that is, we can buy the materials ifwe have money, and the work can be sold in the town. There is one manhas made himself a turning-lathe, and he makes all sorts of prettylittle things. There is another man who was an officer in the navy; hecarves little models of ships out of wood and bone. Another man paints.I have not decided yet what I shall do. I had two or three hundredroubles when I was sent off here, and as I only spent four or five onthe road, I have plenty to last me for some time for tea and tobacco."
"But how do you get them?"
"The warders smuggle them in. It is an understood thing, and there is noreal objection to it, though they are very strict about bringing inspirits. Still we can get vodka if we have a mind to; it is only aquestion of bribery."
"How long are you here for, Alexis?"
"Fifteen years."
"I am supposed to be in for life," Godfrey said.
"Fifteen years is as bad as life," the young doctor said. "What is theuse of your life after having been shut up here for fifteen years?"
"Well, I don't mean to stay, that is one thing," Godfrey said. "Therecan't be any difficulty in escaping from here."
"Not the least in the world," Alexis said quietly. "But where do youpropose to go?"
"I have not settled yet. It seems to me that any one with pluck andenergy ought to be able to make his way out of this country somehow;besides, from what I hear great numbers do get away, and take to thewoods."
"Yes, but they have to give themselves up again."
"That may be; but I hear also that if they give themselves up a long wayfrom the prison they escape from, and refuse to give any accountwhatever of themselves, they are simply sent to prison again asvagabonds. In that case they are treated as ordinary convicts. Now fromwhat I hear, an ordinary convict is infinitely better off than apolitical one. Of course you have to associate with a bad lot; stillthat is better than almost solitary confinement. The work they have todo is not hard, and if they are well conducted they are let out after atime, whereas there is no hope for a political prisoner. At any rate,even if I knew that if I was retaken I should be hung at once, I shouldtry it."
"But the distance to the frontier is enormous, and even when you getthere you would be arrested at the first place you come to if you haveno papers; besides, how could you get through the winter?"
"I should get through the winter somehow," Godfrey said stoutly. "Thereare hundreds and thousands of people in scattered villages who livethrough the winter. Why shouldn't I? I would make friends with thenatives in the north, and live in their huts, and hunt with them. But Iam not thinking of that. The distance is, as you say, enormous, and thecold terrible. My idea is to escape by the south."
"It is a desert, Godfrey."
"Oh they call it a desert to frighten people from trying to escape thatway. But I know there is a caravan route by which the teas come fromChina; besides, there are tribesmen who wander about there and pick up aliving somehow. I don't say that I am going to succeed; I only say I amgoing to try. I may lose my life or I may be sent back again. Very well,then, I will try again some other way. We are not far from the Chinesefrontier here, are we?"
"No; the frontier is at Kiakhta, not more than three or four hundredmiles away."
"What are the people like?"
"They are called Buriats, and are a sort of Mongol tribe, livinggenerally in tents and wandering with their flocks and herds through thecountry like the patriarchs of old."
"If they have large floc
ks and herds," Godfrey said, "the reward theRussians offer for escaped convicts can't tempt them much. Most likelythey are hospitable; almost all these wandering tribes are. If one hadluck one might get befriended and stick for a time to one of thesetribes in their wanderings south, and then get hold of some otherpeople, and so get passed on. There can't be anything impossible in it,Alexis. We know that travellers have made their way through Africaalone. Mungo Park did, and lots of other people have done so, and someof the negro tribes are, according to all accounts, a deal more savagethan the Asiatic tribes. Once among them it doesn't much matter whichway one goes, whether it is east to China or west to Persia."
Alexis sat and looked with some wonder at his companion. "By the saints,Godfrey Bullen, I begin to understand now how it is that your people,living in a bit of an island which could be pinched out of Russia andnever missed, are colonizing half the world; how they go in ships toexplore the polar seas, have penetrated Africa in all directions astravellers, go among the wildest people as missionaries. We are broughtup to have everything done for us: to think as we are told to think, tohave officials keep their eyes over us at every turn, to be punished ifwe dare to think independently, till we have come to be a nation ofgrown-up children. You are only a boy, if you will forgive my callingyou so, and yet you talk about facing the most horrible dangers ascoolly as if you were proposing going for a promenade on the Nevski. Wewon't talk any more about it now, for you have made me feel quiterestless. There, you have been here two hours, and I have forgotten allmy duties as host, and have not even offered you a cup of tea; it isshameful." And Alexis brought out a samovar and soon had water boilingand tea made.
After they had drunk it they went out of the hut, and Godfrey wasintroduced to the other exiles. Two of them who lived together werequite old men; they had been professors at the University of Kieff, andwere exiled for having in their lectures taught what were consideredpernicious doctrines. There were three military and two naval officers,a noble, another doctor, and two sons of merchants. All received himcordially, and Godfrey saw that in any other place the society would bea pleasant one; but there was an air of settled melancholy in themajority of the faces, while the sentry fifty yards away, and the highprison wall behind, seemed ever in their minds.
By common consent, as it seemed, no allusion was ever made to politics.They had all strong opinions, and had sacrificed everything for them,but of what use to discuss matters the course of which they werepowerless to influence in the smallest degree. Free, there was probablynot one of them but would again have striven in one way or another tobring about reforms, either by instructing the ignorant, rousing theintelligent, or frightening the powerful. But here, with no hope ofreturning, the whole thing was best forgotten. The past was dead tothem, and they were without a future. The news that Godfrey brought ofthe blow that had been struck against the Czar roused them for a fewdays. The war then was still being carried on. Others were wielding theweapons they had forged, but of what had happened afterwards Godfrey wasignorant. Four men had been arrested or killed; but whether they hadplayed an important part in the matter he knew not, nor whether othershad shared their fate. All he could say was, that so far as he heard,numerous arrests had taken place.
But the excitement caused by the news very speedily died away, and theyagain became listless and indifferent. All worked for a little time intheir gardens, but beyond that only those who had made some sort ofoccupation for themselves had anything to interest themselves activelyin. Sometimes they played chess, draughts, or cards, but they did so, asGodfrey observed, in a half-hearted manner, with the exception, indeed,of one of the professors, who was by far the strongest chess-player ofthe party, and who passed all his time in inventing problems which, whencomplete, he carefully noted down in a book, with their solutions.
"When I am dead," he said one day to Godfrey, who was watching him,"they will send this book to a nephew of mine; you see I have writtenhis name and address outside. He is a great chess-player, and will sendit to England or France to be published; and it is pleasant for me tothink that my work, even here in prison, may serve as an amusement topeople out in the world."
Except in the dulness and monotony of the life there was little tocomplain of, and Godfrey was surprised to find how far it differed fromhis own preconceived notions of the life of a political prisoner inSiberia. It was only when, by an effort, he looked ahead for years andtried to fancy the possibility of being so cut off from the world forlife, that he could appreciate the terrible nature of the punishment.Better a thousand times to be one of the murderers in the prison behindthe wall. They had work to occupy their time, and constantly changingassociates, with the knowledge that by good conduct they would sooner orlater be released and be allowed to live outside the prison.
When at eight o'clock in the evening the prisoners were locked up intheir huts, he endeavoured to learn everything that Alexis Stumpoff knewof Siberia.
He found that his knowledge was much more extensive than he hadexpected. "As I came out nominally, Godfrey, as a free man, I broughtwith me every book I could buy on the country, and I almost got them byheart. It seemed to me that I was likely to be kept here for years, ifnot for life. I might be sent from one government prison to another,from Tobolsk to the eastern sea; therefore every place possessed aninterest for me. Besides this, although I was not actually a politicalprisoner myself I was virtually so, and my sympathies were wholly withthe prisoners, and I thought that I might possibly be able to advise andcounsel men who came under my charge: to describe to them the placeswhere they might have relations or friends shut up, and to dissuadethose who, like yourself, meditated escape, for my studies had not gonefar before I became convinced that this was well-nigh hopeless. Ilearned how strict were the regulations on the frontier, how impossible,even if this were reached, to journey on without being arrested at thevery first village that a fugitive entered, and that so strict were theythat although numbers of the convict establishments were withincomparatively short distances of the frontier, escapes were no morefrequent from them than from those three thousand miles to the east.When I say escapes I mean escapes from Siberia. Escapes from the prisonsare of constant occurrence, since most of the work is done outside thewalls. There are thousands, I might almost say tens of thousands, getaway every spring, but they all have to come back again in winter. Theauthorities trouble themselves little about them, for they know thatthey must give themselves up in a few months."
"Yes, my guard told me about that. He said they were not punished muchwhen they came in."
"Sometimes they are flogged; but the Russian peasant is accustomed toflogging and thinks but little of it. More often they are not flogged.They have, perhaps, a heavier chain, for the convicts all wearchains--we have an advantage over them there--and they are put on poorerdiet for a time. They lose the remission of sentence they would obtainby good behaviour, that is all, even when they are recognized, but as arule they take care not to give themselves up at the prison they left,but at one many hundred miles from it. In the course of the summer theirhair has grown again. They assert stoutly that they are free labourerswho have lost their papers, and who cannot earn their living through thewinter. The authorities know, of course, that they are escaped convicts,but they have no means of identifying them. They cannot send them therounds of a hundred convict establishments; so instead of a man beingentered as Alexis Stumpoff, murderer, for instance, he is put down bythe name he gives, and the word vagabond is added. The next year theymay break out again; but in time the hardships they suffer in the woodsbecome distasteful and they settle down to their prison life, and then,after perhaps six, perhaps ten years of good conduct they are releasedand allowed to settle where they will. So you see, Godfrey Bullen, howhopeless is the chance of escape."
"Not at all," Godfrey said. "These men are most of them peasants--menwithout education and without enterprise, incapable of forming any plan,and wholly without resources in themselves. I feel as certain ofescaping as I am of be
ing here at present. I don't say that I shallsucceed the first time, but, as you say yourself, there is no difficultyin getting away, and if I fail in one direction I will try in another."