“I say, pals, after all, why do we remain in the place?” struck in a prisoner seated by the kitchen window; he spoke drawlingly, but the man, you could see, enjoyed it all; he slowly rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand. “Why do we stop? It’s no life at all, we’ve been buried, though we’re alive and kicking. Now isn’t it so?”
“Oh, curse it, you can’t get out of prison as easy as shaking off an old boot. I tell you it sticks to your calves. What’s the good of pulling a long face over it?”
“But, look here; there is Koulikoff now,” began one of the most eager, a mere lad.
“Koulikoff!” exclaimed another, looking askance at the young fellow. “Koulikoff! They don’t turn out Koulikoffs by the dozen.”
“And A—v, pals, there’s a lad for you!”
“Aye, aye, he’ll get Koulikoff just where he wants him, as often as he wants him. He’s up to everything, he is.”
“I wonder how far they’ve got; that’s what I want to know,” said one.
Then the talk went off into details: Had they got far from the town? What direction did they go off in? Which gave them the best chance? Then they discussed distances, and as there were convicts who knew the neighbourhood well, these were attentively listened to.
Next, they talked over the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, of whom they seemed to think as badly as possible. There was nobody in the neighbourhood, the convicts believed, who would hesitate at all as to the course to be pursued; nothing would induce them to help the runaways; quite the other way, these people would hunt them down.
“If you only knew what bad fellows these peasants are! Rascally brutes!”