But, brute that he was, he fell upon the food that was soon placed before him, and after gorging himself and washing it down with fiery Russian brandy, he showed more of his brute instincts by becoming more peaceable, and finally going to sleep in his chair.
Barnwell removed the wreck of the feast as noiselessly as possible, and left him alone, not daring, however, to go far away, for fear of again exciting his ire, knowing that he had the power to consign him to the underground mines, or even to kill him like a dog. And so he sat and waited his pleasure.
But his anxiety was hardly to be mastered, for he wanted a few more words with Batavsky regarding the solution of the diagram he had given him, not knowing whether he would be alive when he might see him next.
What new thoughts crowded themselves into his mind now!
And although his desire to escape was no greater than ever, yet the possibilities that would now attend it were overwhelming, almost.
But how was he to give force to all this–how could he escape from that closely-guarded colony, with armed sentinels at every turn, and trained bloodhounds ready to follow any scents even if he escaped from the guards. He would be sure to be missed, and the guards knowing nothing of his whereabouts, let it be supposed, those savage brutes would be started out in every direction until they found his scent, and then run him down to death from their fangs or for an easy capture.
He had seen too much of it during the terrible year he had lived in Siberia. Many a wretch, ambitious to be free, he had known to set his life upon the hazard of a chance, and attempt to escape into the Ural mountains, only to be run to bay by those terrible hounds, and either killed by them or dragged back into the captivity sure to be made worse than before.
And he had seen men have their flesh stripped from their naked backs with the cruel knout, in the hands of unfeeling wretches.
And had he not been buoyed up by hope of one day escaping, he would surely have taken his own life as he had actually seen others do when hope failed them.
The situation was a dreadful one, even to a criminal; but what was it to an innocent man like William Barnwell? But, after all, it gave nerve to his heart.