Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia

by G. A. Henty

"No," he went on kindly, seeing that Godfrey looked depressed at what he had heard; "whatever you do don't think of running away. If you behave well, and gain the good opinion of the authorities, you won't find yourself uncomfortable. You will be made a clerk or a store-keeper, and will 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 bad there as they say, it is bad enough."

But even this prospect was not very cheering to Godfrey. Hitherto it had seemed to him that there could be no real difficulty, although there might be many hardships and privations, in making his escape from so vast a prison. He had told himself that it must be possible to evade pursuit in so vast a region; but now it seemed that nature had set so strong a wall round the country that the Russians did not even trouble themselves to pursue, confident that in time the prisoners must come back again. But he was not silent long. With the buoyancy of youth he put the question aside for the present with the reflection, "Where there is a will there is a way; anyhow some fellows have got away, and if they have 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 the matter 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 should really have to pass his whole life in these wilds, should never see England again, his father, mother, or sisters, was a thing that his mind absolutely refused to grasp. "Of course I shall get away somehow." This had been the refrain that was constantly running through his mind, and even now a satisfactory reply to the assertion that not a dozen men had made their escape at once occurred to him. There was no motive to induce them to make their escape. They could not return to Russia, and in any other country they would be even more in exile than here, where everyone spoke their language, and where, as far as he had seen, the climate was as 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 once re-established that view to his satisfaction, he began to chat away cheerfully again to his companion. "It is not everyone," he said, "who possesses my advantages, or who can travel five or six thousand miles by rail, steamer, and carriage, without ever having to put his hand in his pocket for a single kopec. The only objection to it is that they don't give me a return ticket."

"That is an objection," the policeman agreed, smiling.

"We are not going to travel night and day, as we did between Ekaterinburg 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. It would be something awful if it had to be kept up for a fortnight. How long shall we be before we get to [Irkoutsk]?"

"About a month. I know nothing as to what will be done with you beyond that. You may, for anything I know, go to the mines at Nertchinsk, which are 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 no danger from them; but the theory is that the politicals are always plotting, and therefore they are for the most part sent where by no possibility can they get up trouble."

Godfrey set his lips hard together and asked no questions for the next half-hour. Although the journey was not continued by night the telega was still Godfrey's constant place of abode. Sometimes it was wheeled under a shed, sometimes it stood in the road, but in all cases the policeman was by his side night and day. Godfrey was indifferent whether he slept in a bed or in the telega, which, when the straw was fresh shaken up and a couple of rugs laid upon it, was by no means uncomfortable. The nights were not cold and no rain had fallen since he left Nijni. He further reflected that probably there would be fleas and other vermin in the post-houses, and that altogether he was a gainer instead of a loser by the regulation.