The convicts were not at all disturbed by all this bustling absurdity. They put on a very unconcerned demeanour, and, as is always the case in such a conjuncture, behaved in the prettiest manner all that evening and night. “We won’t give them any handle anyhow,” was the general feeling. The question with the authorities was whether some among us were not in complicity with those who had got away, so a careful watch was kept over our doings, and a careful ear for our conversations; but nothing came of it.
“Not such fools, those fellows, as to leave anybody behind who was in the secret!”
“When you go at that sort of thing you lie low and play low!”
“Koulikoff and A—v know enough to have covered up their tracks. They’ve done the trick in first-rate style, keeping things to themselves; they’ve mizzled, the rascals; clever chaps, those, they could get through shut doors!”
The glory of Koulikoff and A—v had grown a hundred cubits higher than it was. Everybody was proud of them. Their exploit, it was felt, would be handed down to the most distant posterity, and outlive the jail itself.
“Rattling fellows, those!” said one.
“Can’t get away from here, eh? That’s their notion, is it? Just look at those chaps!”
“Yes,” said a third, looking very superior, “but who is it that has got away? Tip-top fellows. You can’t hold a candle to them.”
At any other time the man to whom anything of that sort was said would have replied angrily enough, and defended himself; now the observation was met with modest silence.
“True enough,” was said. “Everybody’s not a Koulikoff or an A—v, you’ve got to show what you’re made of before you’ve a right to speak.”