A PRISONER.
Soon after this St. Petersburg was startled at the news that there had
been a terrible explosion at the Winter Palace, and that the Czar and
royal family had narrowly escaped with their lives. Upon the following
evening Godfrey was walking down the Nevski, where groups of people were
still discussing the terrible affair. He presently met Akim Soushiloff
and Petroff Stepanoff. He had not seen them for some time, and as they
had omitted to give him the address of the lodging into which they had
moved, he was really glad to see them, for he liked them better than any
of the Russians of his acquaintance, for both had an earnest manner and
seemed to be free from narrow prejudices, sincere admirers of England,
and on most subjects very well informed.
"It is quite an age since I have seen you both," he said. "Where have
you been hiding?"
"We have been working harder than usual," Petroff said; "our last
examinations are just coming off. But you said that you would come to
see us, and you have never done so."
"You did not tell me where you had moved to," Godfrey said, "or I should
have done so long ago."
"That was stupid indeed!" Akim said. "Have you an hour to spare now?"
"Yes, I have nothing to do, and shall be very glad to come round and
have a talk. This is a horrible business at the Winter Palace."
"Horrible," Petroff said; "but it is just as well not to talk about it
in the streets. Come along, we will take you to our place; we were just
thinking of going back."
A quarter of an hour's walking took them to the students' room, which
was, like the last, at the top of the house. A lamp was lighted, the
samovar placed on the table, and a little charcoal fire lit under it. A
glass of vodka was handed round to pass the time until the water was
boiling, pipes were brought out from the cupboard and filled, for
cigars, which are cheap and good, are generally smoked in the streets in
Russia by the middle and upper classes, pipes being only used there by
Isvostchiks, labourers, and Englishmen. The conversation naturally for a
time turned upon the explosion in the Winter Palace, the Russians
expressing an indignation fully equal to that of Godfrey. Then they
talked of England, both regretting that they were unable to speak the
language.
"I would give much to be able to read Shakespeare," Petroff said. "I
have heard his works spoken of in such high terms by some of our friends
who have studied your language, and I have heard, too, from them of your
Dickens. They tell me it is like reading of another world--a world in
which there are no officials, and no police, and no soldiers. That must
be very near a paradise."
"We have some soldiers," Godfrey laughed, "but one does not see much of
them. About half of those we have at home are in two military camps, one
in England and one in Ireland. There are the Guards in London, but the
population is so large that you might go a week without seeing one,
while in very few of the provincial towns are there any garrisons at
all. There are police, and plenty of them, but as their business is only
to prevent crime, they naturally don't play a prominent part in novels
giving a picture of everyday life. As to officials, beyond
rate-collectors we don't see anything of them, though there are
magistrates, and government clerks, and custom officers, and that sort
of thing, but they certainly don't play any prominent part in our
lives."
So they chatted for an hour, when at short intervals two other men came
in. One was a tall handsome fellow who was introduced by Petroff as the
son of Baron Kinkoff, the other was a young advocate of Moscow on a
visit to St. Petersburg. Both, Godfrey observed, had knocked in a
somewhat peculiar manner at the door, which opened, as he had noticed
when they came in, only by a key. Akim observed a slight expression of
surprise in Godfrey's face at the second knock, and said laughing:
"Our remittances have not come to hand of late, Godfrey, and some of our
creditors are getting troublesome, so we have established a signal by
which we know our friends, while inconvenient visitors can knock as long
as they like, and then go away thinking we are out."
Godfrey chatted for a short time longer, and then got up to go. Akim
went to the door with him. As it opened there was a sudden rush of men
from outside that nearly knocked him down. Of what followed he had but a
vague idea. Pistol shots rang out. There was a desperate struggle. He
received a blow on the head which struck him to the ground, and an
instant later there was a tremendous explosion. The next thing he knew
was that he was being hauled from below some debris. As he looked round
bewildered he saw that a considerable portion of the ceiling and of the
roof above it had been blown out. Several bodies lay stretched on the
floor. The room was still full of smoke, but by the light of two or
three lanterns he perceived that the young baron, bleeding freely from a
sabre wound across the forehead, was standing bound between two
policemen with drawn swords. Policemen were examining the bodies on the
floor, while others were searching the closets, cutting open the beds
and turning out their contents. Akim lay on his back dead, and across
him lay the young advocate. Of Petroff he could see nothing; the other
bodies were those of policemen. Three of these near the door appeared to
have been shot; the others were lying in contorted positions against the
walls, as if they had been flung there by the force of the explosion.
All this he saw in a state of vague wonderment, while the two policemen
kneeling at his side were passing cords tightly round him.
"This one still lives," one of the policemen said, stooping over the
young advocate, "but I think he is nearly done for."
"Never mind, bring him along with the others," a man in plain clothes
said in tones of authority. "Get them away at once, we shall have half
St. Petersburg here in a few minutes."
Godfrey was lifted by the policemen, one at his head, and one at his
feet, carried down-stairs, and flung into a vehicle at the door. Dully
he heard a roar of excited shouts and questions, and the sharp orders
of the police ranged round the vehicle. Three policemen took their
places inside with him, and the vehicle drove off, slowly at first until
it was free of the crowd, and then at a sharp gallop. Godfrey was
conscious of but little as he went along; he had a vague idea of a warm
moist feeling down the back, and wondered whether it was his own blood.
Gradually his impressions became more and more indistinct, and he knew
nothing more until he was conscious of a sensation of cold at the back
of the head, and of a murmur of voices round him. Soon he was lifted up
into a sitting position, and he felt that bandages were being wrapped
round his head. Then he was laid down again, he heard a door slam and a
key turn, and then he knew nothing more. When he awoke daylight was
streaming in through a loophole high up in the wall. He tried to sit up,
but could not, and looked round trying to recall where he was and what
had happened. He was in a dark cell with no furniture save the straw on
which he was lying.
"It is a prison certainly," he muttered to himself. "How did I get
here?"
Then gradually the events of the night before came to his mind. There
had been a terrible fight. Akim had been killed. There had been a
tremendous explosion. The police had something to do with it. Was it all
a dream, or was it real? Was he dreaming now? He was some time before he
could persuade himself that it was all real, and indeed it was not until
the door opened and two men entered that he felt quite sure that he,
Godfrey Bullen, was really lying there in a prison cell, with a dull
numbing pain at the back of his head, and too weak even to sit upright.
One of the men leaned over him. Godfrey tried to speak, but could not do
so above a whisper.
"He will do now," the man said without paying any attention to his
words. "He must have a thick skull or that sword-cut would have finished
him. Give him some wine and water now, and some soup presently. We must
not let him slip through our fingers."
Some liquid was poured between his lips, and then he was left alone
again. "Certainly it is all real," he said to himself. "Akim must have
been killed, and I must be a prisoner. What in the world can it be all
about?" He was too weak to think, but after another visit had been paid
him, and he had been lifted up and given some strong broth, he began to
think more clearly. "Can it have been a Nihilist arrest?" he thought to
himself. "Akim and Petroff can never be Nihilists. The idea is absurd. I
have never heard them say a word against the government or the Czar."
Then he thought of their friend Katia, and how she had got him to aid in
the escape of a Nihilist. "It is all nonsense," he murmured, "the idea
of a girl like that being mixed up in a conspiracy." Then his ideas
again became more and more confused, and when the doctor visited him
again in the evening he was in a state of high fever, talking
incoherently to himself. For seven days he continued in that state.
There was no lack of care; the doctor visited him at very short
intervals, and an attendant remained night and day beside him, applying
cold bandages to his head, and carefully noting down in a book every
word that passed his lips. Then a good constitution gradually triumphed
over the fever, and on the eighth day he lay a mere shadow of himself,
but cool and sensible, on a bed in an airy ward. Nourishing food was
given to him in abundance, but it was another week before he was able to
stand alone. Then one morning two attendants brought a stretcher to the
side of his bed. He was assisted to put on his clothes, and was then
placed on the stretcher and carried away. He was taken through long
passages, up and down stairs, at last into a large room. Here he was
lifted on the stretcher and placed in a chair. Facing him at a table
were nine officers.
"Prisoner," the president said, glancing at a large closely-written
sheet of paper before him, "you are accused of taking part in a Nihilist
conspiracy to murder the Czar."
"I know nothing of any Nihilist conspiracy," Godfrey said. "I was
accidentally in the room with my friends Akim and Petroff when the
police entered."
The president waved his hand impatiently. "That of course," he said.
"Your name is Godfrey Bullen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Born in St. Petersburg, but of English parentage?"
Godfrey bowed his head.
"Three months since you took part in the plot by means of which the
notorious Valerian Ossinsky escaped from the hands of the police, and
you were the accomplice of Sophia Perovskaia in that matter."
"I never heard the name before," Godfrey said.
The president paid no attention, but went on: "You said at the time," he
continued, reading from the notes, "that you did not know the woman who
spoke to you, but it is known that she was an associate of Akim
Soushiloff and Petroff Stepanoff, at whose place you were captured the
other day. There is therefore no doubt that you know her."
"I knew her under another name," Godfrey said; "but if I had been told
she was Sophia Perovskaia, it conveyed nothing to me, for I had never
heard of her."
"You are committing yourself, prisoner," the president said coldly.
"When examined you denied all acquaintance with the woman, and declared
that she was a stranger."
"Excuse me, sir," Godfrey said, "I said it was a masked woman, and that
I did not see her face, which was perfectly true. I admit now that I did
know who she was, but naturally as a gentleman I endeavoured to shield
her in a matter concerning which I believed that she was as innocent as
I was."
A murmur of incredulity ran round the circle of officers.
"A few days after that," the president went on, again reading from his
notes, "you were present with Akim Soushiloff and Petroff Stepanoff at a
supper in a trakir in Ossuloff Street. There were present on that
occasion"--and he read a list of six names--"four of whom have since
been convicted and punished, and two of whom, although not yet taken,
are known to have been engaged in the murderous attempt at the Winter
Palace. You were greeted there with significant enthusiasm, which was
evidently a testimony on the part of these conspirators to the part you
had played in the affair of Ossinsky."
Godfrey felt that the meshes were closing round him. He remembered that
he had wondered at the time why he had been received with such great
cordiality.
"Now," the president went on, "you are captured in the room of Akim
Soushiloff and Petroff Stepanoff, who were both beyond doubt engaged in
the plot at the Winter Palace, with two other equally guilty
conspirators, and were doubtless deliberating on some fresh atrocity
when interrupted by the agents of the police. You shared in the
desperate resistance they made, which resulted in the death of eight
police officers by pistol shot, or by the explosion of gunpowder, by
which Petroff Stepanoff, who fired it, was also blown to pieces. What
have you to say in your defence?"
"I still say that I am perfectly innocent," Godfrey said. "I knew
nothing of these men being conspirators in any way, and I demand to be
allowed to communicate with my friends, and to obtain the assistance of
an advocate."
"An advocate could say nothing for you," the president said. "You do not
deny any of the charges brought against you, which are, that you were
the associate of these assassins, that you aided Sophia Perovskaia in
effecting the escape of Valerian Ossinsky, that you received the
congratulations of the conspirators at the banquet, and that you were
found in this room in company with four of the men concerned in the
attempt to assassinate the Czar. But the court is willing to be
merciful, and if you will tell all you know with reference to this plot,
and give the names of all the conspirators with whom you have been
concerned, your offence will be dealt with as leniently as possible."
"I repeat that I know nothing, and can therefore disclose nothing, sir,
and I venture to protest against the authority of this court to try and
condemn me, an Englishman."
"No matter what is the nationality of the person," the president said
coldly, "who offends against the laws of this country, he is amenable to
its laws, and his nationality affords him no protection whatever. You
will have time given you to think the matter over before your sentence
is communicated to you. Remove the prisoner."
Godfrey was laid on the stretcher again and carried away. This time he
was taken, not to the room where he had been placed while ill, but to a
dark cell where scarce a ray of light penetrated. There was a heap of
straw in one corner, a loaf of black bread, and a jug of water. Godfrey
when left alone shook up the straw to make it as comfortable as he
possibly could, then sat down upon it with his back against the wall.
"Well, this is certainly a go," he said to himself. "If there was one
thing that seemed less likely than another, it was that I should get
involved in this Nihilist business. In the first place, the governor
specially warned me against it; in the second place, I have been
extremely careful never to give any opinion on public affairs; and in
the third place, if there is one thing I detest more than another it is
assassination. I cannot say it is cowardly in these men. The Nihilists
do more than risk their lives; they give their lives away to carry out
their end. Still, though I own it is not cowardly, I hate it. The
question is, what next? Petrovytch will, of course, write home to say
that I am missing. I don't suppose he will have the slightest idea that
I have been arrested as a Nihilist. I don't see how he could think so.
He is more likely to think that I have been made away with somehow. No
doubt my father will come out; but, of course, he won't learn any more
than Petrovytch, unless they choose to tell him. I don't suppose they
will tell him. I have heard that generally families of people they seize
know nothing about it, unless they are arrested too. They may guess what
has happened, but they don't know. In my case I should fancy the police
would say nothing.
"They will hear from the inquiries that my father makes that he has no
suspicion of what has happened to me, and they will know if they did
tell him our ambassador would be making a row. But even if the governor
were to learn what had become of me, and were to insist upon learning
what crime I am accused of committing, I do not see that things would be
much better. They would hand over the notes of the evidence on which I
was convicted, and, taking it altogether, I am bound to say I do not see
how they could help convicting me. Short of catching me like a sort of
Guy Fawkes blowing up the palace, the case is about as strong as it
could be. I certainly have put my foot in it. I was acquainted with
these two conspirators; through them I got acquainted with that
confounded woman Katia, though it seems that wasn't her name. Then
through her I helped this fellow Ossinsky to escape. Then, trying to
shield her, I make matters twenty times worse; for while my answer
before led them to believe that she was a perfect stranger to me, I was
ass enough to let out just now that I knew her. Then there was that
supper. I could not make out at the time why they greeted me so
heartily. Now, of course, it is plain enough; and now, just after this
blowing-up business, here am I caught with four notorious conspirators,
and mixed up in a fight in which eight or ten policemen are killed, and
the roof blown off a house. That would be circumstantial evidence enough
to condemn a man in England, let alone Russia.
"I don't suppose they are going to hang me, because they publish the
names of the fellows they hang; but imprisonment for years in one of
their ghastly dungeons is bad enough. If it is to be, it will be
Siberia, I hope. There must be some way of getting out of a big country
like that--north, south, east, or west. Well, I don't see any use
bothering over it. I have got into a horrible scrape, there is no doubt
about that, and I must take what comes."
Godfrey was essentially of a hopeful nature, and always looked at the
bright side of things. He was a strong believer in the adage, "Where
there is a will, there is a way." He had been in his full share of
scrapes at school, and had always made a rule of taking things easily.
He now examined the cell.
"Beastly place!" he said, "and horribly damp. I wonder why dungeons are
always damp. Cellars at home are not damp, and a dungeon is nothing but
a cellar after all. Well, I shall take a nap."
The next day Godfrey was again taken before the tribunal, and again
closely questioned as to his knowledge of the Nihilists. He again
insisted that he knew nothing of them.
"Of course I knew Akim Soushiloff and Petroff Stepanoff; but I had only
been in their rooms once before, and the only person I met there before
was the young woman who called herself Katia, but who you say was
somebody else. This was at the lodgings they occupied before."
"But you were found with Alexander Kinkoff and Paul Kousmitch."
"They only arrived a short time before the police entered. I had never
seen either of them before."
These two prisoners had been examined before Godfrey entered, and had
been questioned about him. Kousmitch had declared that he had never seen
him before, and the court knew that the spies who had been watching the
house had seen him enter but a short time before the police force
arrived. As the two statements had been made independently it was
thought probable that in this respect Godfrey was speaking the truth.
Not so, however, his assertions that he was unacquainted with any of the
other conspirators.
He was again taken back to his cell, and for the next week saw no one
but the warder who brought his bread and water, and who did not reply by
a single word to any questions that he asked him. Godfrey did his best
to keep up his spirits. He had learnt by heart at Shrewsbury the first
two books of the Iliad, and these he daily repeated aloud, set himself
equations to do, and solved them in his head, repeated the dates in
Greek history, and went through everything he could remember as having
learned.
He occasionally heard footsteps above him, and wondered whether that
also was a cell, and what sort of man the prisoner was. Once or twice at
night, when all was quiet, he heard loud cries, and wondered whether
they were the result of delirium or torture. His gruff jailer was
somewhat won by his cheerfulness. Every day Godfrey wished him good
morning as he visited the cell, inquired what the weather was like
outside, expressed an earnest hope that silence didn't disagree with
him, and generally joked and laughed as if he rather enjoyed himself
than otherwise. At the end of the week an official entered the cell.
"I have come to inform you, prisoner, that the sentence of death that
had been passed upon you has, by the clemency of the Czar, been commuted
to banishment for life to Siberia."
"Very well, sir," Godfrey said. "I know, of course, that I am perfectly
innocent of the crime of which I am charged; but as the Czar no doubt
supposes that I am guilty of taking part in a plot against his life, I
acknowledge and thank him for his clemency. I have no peculiar desire to
visit Siberia, but at least it will be a change for the better from this
place. I trust that it shall not be long before I start."
As the official was unable to make out whether Godfrey spoke in mockery
or not, he made no reply.
"These Nihilists are men of iron," he said afterwards. "They walk to
the scaffold with smiling faces; they exist in dungeons that would kill
a dog in twenty-four hours, and nothing can tempt them to divulge their
secrets; even starvation does not affect them. They are dangerous
enemies, but it must be owned that they are brave men and women. This
boy, for he is little more, almost laughed in our faces; and, in spite
of his stay in that damp cell, seemed to be in excellent spirits. It is
the same with them all, though I own that some of them do break down
sometimes; but I think that those who commit suicide do so principally
because they are afraid that, under pressure, they may divulge secrets
against each other. Ossip, who attends that young fellow, says that he
is always the same, and speaks as cheerfully to him every morning as if
he were in a palace instead of in a dungeon."
Two days later Godfrey was aroused in the night.
"Why, it is not light yet," he said. "What are you disturbing me at this
time for?"
"Get up," the man said; "you are going to start."
"Thank goodness for that!" Godfrey said, jumping up from his straw.
"That is the best news that I have heard for a long time."
In the court-yard seven prisoners were standing. They were placed at
some distance from each other, and by each stood a soldier and a
policeman. A similar guard took their places by the side of Godfrey as
he came out. An official took charge of the whole party, and, still
keeping a few paces apart, they sallied out through the prison doors and
marched through the sleeping city. Perhaps Godfrey was the only one of
the party who did not feel profoundly impressed. They were going to
leave behind them for ever family and friends and country, and many
would have welcomed death as an escape from the dreary prospect before
them. Godfrey's present feeling was that of exhilaration.
He had done his best to keep his mind at work, but the damp and
unwholesome air of the cell had told upon him, enfeebled as he had been
by the attack of fever. As he walked along now he drew in deep breaths
of the brisk night air, and looked with delight at the stars glistening
overhead. As to the future, just at that moment it troubled him but
little. He knew nothing of Siberia beyond having heard that the
prisoners there led a terrible life. That he should escape from it some
time or other seemed to him a matter of course. How, he could form no
idea until he got there; but as to the fact he had no misgiving, for it
seemed to him ridiculous that in a country so enormous as Siberia a
prisoner could not make his way out sooner or later.
When they reached the railway-station a train stood in readiness. Each
prisoner had a separate compartment, his two guards accompanying him.
Godfrey addressed a word to his custodians. The policeman, however,
said, "You are forbidden to speak," and in a minute or two the train
moved off.
Godfrey dozed occasionally until morning, and then looked out at the
dark woods through which they passed for hours. Twice the train stopped
at lonely stations, and the prisoners were supplied with food. In the
afternoon Godfrey saw the gilded and painted domes of a great city, and
knew that it must be Moscow. Here, however, they made no stay, but
steamed straight through the station and continued their way. Godfrey
slept soundly after it became dark, waking up once when the train came
to a standstill. At early morning he was roused and ordered to alight,
and in the same order as before the prisoners were marched through the
streets of Nijni Novgorod to the bank of the Volga. Few people were yet
abroad in the streets, but all they met looked pityingly at the group of
exiles, a sight of daily occurrence in the springtime of the year.
Ordinary prisoners, of whom from fifteen to twenty thousand are sent
annually to Siberia, are taken down the Volga in a convict barge, towed
by a steamer, in batches of six or seven hundred. Political
prisoners are differently treated; they are carried on board the
ordinary steamer, each having a separate cabin, and during the voyage
they are allowed no intercourse whatever, either with each other or with
the ordinary passengers.
[Illustration: Map of Russian Empire]
Of these there were a considerable number on board the steamer, as the
season had but just begun, and merchants, traders, and officials were
taking advantage of the river's being open to push forward into Siberia.
At present, however, these were all below. The prisoners were conducted
to the cabins reserved for them, and then locked in. Presently Godfrey
heard a buzz of many voices and a general movement in the cabin outside,
and the fact that he was a prisoner and cut off from the world came to
him more strongly than it had hitherto done. An hour later there was a
movement and shouting overhead. Then he felt the paddles revolving, and
knew that the steamer was under way. He could, however, see nothing. A
sort of shutter was fastened outside the scuttle, which gave him the
opportunity to take a glimpse of the sky, but nothing of the shore or
water. Nothing could be more monotonous than the journey, and yet the
air and light that came down through the port-hole rendered it far more
pleasant than existence in a prison cell. He knew, too, that, dull as it
was in the cabin, there would be little to see on deck, for the shores
of the rivers were everywhere flat and low.
After twenty-four hours' travel the steamer stopped. Since Godfrey had
been in Russia he had naturally studied the geography of the empire, and
knew a good deal about the routes. He guessed, therefore, that the halt
was at Kasan, the capital of the old Tartar kingdom. It was a break to
him to listen to the noises overhead, to guess at the passengers who
were leaving and coming on board, to listen to scraps of conversation
that could be heard through the open port-hole, and to the shouts of
farewell from those on board to those on shore as the vessel steamed on
again. He knew that after two hours' more steaming down the Volga the
vessel turned up the Kama, a large river running into it and navigable
for 1400 miles. Up this the vessel steamed for three days and then
reached Perm. In the evening Godfrey and his companions were disembarked
and, strictly guarded as before, were marched to the railway-station,
placed in a special carriage attached to a train, and after twenty-four
hours' travel at the rate of about twelve miles an hour reached
Ekaterinburg. This railway had only been open for a year, and until its
completion this portion of the journey had been one of the most tiresome
along the whole route, as the Ural Mountains intervene between Perm and
Ekaterinburg; their height is not great here, and the railway crosses
them at not more than 1700 feet above sea-level.
On arriving at the station half the prisoners were at once placed in
vehicles and the others were sent to the prison. Godfrey was one of the
party that went on at once. The vehicle, which was called a telega, was
a sort of narrow waggon without springs, seats, or cover; the bottom was
covered with a deep layer of straw, and there were some thick rugs for
coverings at night. It was drawn by three horses. Godfrey was in the
last of the four vehicles that started together. His soldier guard took
his place beside him, four mounted Cossacks rode, two on each side of
the procession. The driver, a peasant, to whom the horses belonged,
cracked his short-handled whip and the horses sprang forward. Siberian
horses are wiry little animals, not taking to the eye, but possessing
speed and great endurance. The post-houses are situated from twelve to
twenty-five versts apart, according to the difficulty of the country, a
verst being about two-thirds of an English mile. At these post-houses
relays of horses are always kept in readiness for one or two vehicles,
but word is sent on before when political prisoners are coming, and
extra relays are obtained by the post-masters from the peasants.
To Godfrey the sensation of being whirled through the air as fast as the
horses could gallop was, after his long confinement, perfectly
delightful, and he fairly shouted with joy and excitement. Now that they
were past Ekaterinburg, Godfrey's guard, a good-tempered-looking young
fellow, seemed to consider that it was no longer necessary to preserve
an absolute silence, which had no doubt been as irksome to him as to his
companion.
"We can talk now. Why are you so merry?"
"To be in the air again is glorious," Godfrey said, "I should not mind
how long the journey lasted if it were like this. How far do we travel
in carriages?"
"To Tiumen, 300 versts; then we take steamer again, that is if you go
farther."
"You don't know where we are going to then?"
"Not at all, it will be known at Tiumen; that is where these things are
settled generally, but people like you are under special orders. You
don't look very wicked;" and he smiled in a friendly way as he looked at
the lad beside him.
"I am not wicked at all, not in the way you think," Godfrey said.
"Do not talk about that," the soldier interrupted, "I must not know
anything about you; talk about other things, but not why you are here."
Godfrey nodded. "If we go on beyond Tiumen we go by steamer, do we not?"
"Yes, through Tobolsk to Tomsk, beyond that we shall drive. You are
lucky, you people, that you drive, the others walk; it is long work, but
not so long as it used to be, they say. I have been told that in the old
times, when they started on foot from Moscow it took them sometimes two
years to reach the farthest places. Now they have the railway, and the
steamers on the river as far as Tomsk."
"How do they take them in the steamers?"
"They take them in great barges that are towed; we passed two on our way
to Perm. They hold five or six hundred, there is a great iron cage on
deck, and they let half the number up at a time in order to get air.
They are always going along at this time of year, for they all go early
in the season so as to get to the journey's end before the frosts set
in."
"But surely all these men cannot be guilty of great crimes," Godfrey
said, "for I have heard that about twenty thousand a year are sent
away?"
"No, many of them are only lazy fellows who drink and will not work. We
sent away three from my village the year before I was taken for a
soldier. They were lazy and would not do their share of work, so the
heads of the village met and decided that they should go to Siberia.
They drew up a paper, which was sent to be confirmed by the judge of the
district, and then soldiers came and took them away."
"But you don't mean to say," Godfrey said, "that men are sent to prison
all their lives because they are lazy."
"Oh no, no one would think of such a thing as that! Men like these are
only sent to the big towns, Tiumen, or Perm, or Tobolsk, and then they
are settled on land or work in the towns, but they are free to do as
they like. The country wants labour, and men who won't work at home and
expect the community to keep them have to work here or else they would
starve. Then there are numbers who are only guilty of some small
offence. They have stolen something, or they have resisted the
tax-gatherer, or something of that sort. They only go to prison for the
term of their sentences, perhaps only three or four months, and then
they too are free like the others, and can work in the towns, or trade
if they happen to have money to set them up, or they can settle in a
village and take up land and cultivate it. They can live where they like
in Siberia. I had many rich men pointed out to me in Tobolsk who had
come out as convicts."
"You have been here before then?" Godfrey said.
"Yes, this is my second journey. I hope I shall come no more. We get a
little extra pay and are better fed than we are with the regiment, and
we have no drill; but then it is sad. Last time I had one with me who
had left his wife and family behind; he was always sad, he talked to me
sometimes of them, there was no one else to talk to. He was here for
life, and he knew he should never see them again. She was young and
would marry again."
"But she couldn't do that as long as he lived," Godfrey said.
"Oh yes; from the day a prisoner crosses the frontier his marriage is
annulled and his wife can marry again. She may come with him if she
likes, but if she does she can never go back again."
"And do many wives come?"
"A good many," the soldier said; "but I only know what I have heard. I
was with one of you last time, and it was only on the way back that I
heard of things about the others. Formerly the guards remained in
Siberia if they chose, it was too far to send them back to Russia; but
now that the journey is done so quickly, and we can get back all the way
from Tomsk by the rivers, except this little bit, we go back again as
soon as we have handed over our charges. I did not go farther than Tomsk
last time, and I was back at Nijni in less than three months after
starting. What part of Russia do you come from?"
"I am an Englishman."
The soldier looked round in surprise. "I did not know Englishmen could
speak our language so well; of course I noticed that your speech was not
quite like mine, but I am from the south and I thought you must come
from somewhere in the north or from Poland. How did--" and here he
stopped. "But I must not ask that; I don't want to know anything, not
even your name. Look there, we are just going to pass a convoy of other
prisoners."
In a minute or two they overtook the party. It consisted of about a
hundred and fifty prisoners escorted by a dozen mounted Cossacks. The
men were in prison garb of yellowish-brown stuff with a coloured patch
in the back between the shoulders. They had chains fastened to rings
round the ankles and tied up to their belts. They were not heavy, and
interfered very little with their walking. The procession in no way
accorded with Godfrey's preconceived idea. The men were walking along
without much attempt at regular order. They were laughing and talking
together or with their guards, and some of them shouted chaffing remarks
to the four vehicles as they swept past them.
"They do not look very unhappy," Godfrey said.
"Why should they?" the soldier replied; "they are better off than they
would be at home. Lots of men break the law on purpose to be sent out;
it is a good country. They say wives get rid of their husbands by
informing against them and getting them sent here. I believe there are
quite as many husbands with scolding wives who get themselves sent here
to be free of them. As long as they are on the road or employed in hard
labour they are fed better than they ever were at home, better a great
deal than we soldiers are. Even in the prisons they do not work so very
hard, for it is difficult to find work for them; only if they are sent
to the mines their lot is bad. Of that I know nothing, but I have heard.
As for the rest, from what I have seen of it I should say that a convict
here is better off than a peasant at home. But here we are at the
post-house."