He was pleased with the appearance of Atchinsk, a bright little town a day's journey from Tomsk. It was, like all the Siberian towns, built of wood, but the houses were all painted white or gray, picked out with bright colours. It stood in the middle of a large grass plain, with inclosed meadows of luxuriant herbage and bright flowers, among which large numbers of sheep and cattle were feeding. Beyond this the country again became dull and monotonous. Krasnoiarsk was the next town reached. Between this town and Kansk the country was again cultivated.
Scarce a day passed without large gangs of convicts being overtaken on the road. For some distance Godfrey suffered terribly from mosquitoes, which swarmed so thickly that the peasants working in the fields were obliged to wear black veils over their faces. Fortunately he had been warned by his guard at Atchinsk that there would be trouble with these pests on further, and the man had, at his request, bought for him a few yards of muslin, under which they sat during the day and spread over the telega at night. It was, however, a long and dreary journey, and Godfrey was heartily glad when at last they saw the domes of [Irkoutsk], a city of fifty thousand inhabitants.
They drove rapidly through the town to the prison, where he was placed in a cell by himself. The morning after his arrival the warder entered with a man carrying a basin and shaving apparatus.
"Confound it!" Godfrey muttered. "I have been expecting this ever since I saw the first gang of convicts, but I hoped they did not do it to us."
It was of course useless to remonstrate. His hair, which had grown to a great length since he left St. Petersburg, was first cut short; then the barber lathered his head and set to work with a razor. Godfrey wondered what his particular style of hair was going to be. He had noticed that all the convicts were partially shaved. Some were left bare from the centre of the head down one side; others had the front half of the head shaved, while the hair at the back was left; some had only a ridge of hair running along the top of the head, either from the forehead to the nape of the neck or from one ear to the other.
"He is shaving me like a monk," he said to himself as the work proceeded. "Well, I think that is the best after all, for with a cap on it won't show."
When the barber had done he stepped back and surveyed Godfrey with an air of satisfaction; while the jailer, as he wrote down the particulars in a note-book, grinned. Godfrey passed his hand over his head and found that, as he supposed, he had been shaved half-way down to the ears; but in the middle of this bald place the barber had left a patch of hair about the size of half-a-crown which stood up perfectly erect. He burst into a shout of laughter, in which the other two men joined. The jailer patted him approvingly on the shoulder. "Bravo, young fellow!" he said, pleased at seeing how lightly Godfrey took it, for many of the exiles who had stood bravely the loss of their liberty were completely broken down by the loss of a portion of their hair, which branded them wherever they went as convicts.
Godfrey was then taken out into a large court-yard and out through a gate into another inclosure. This had evidently been added but a very short time to the precincts of the prison. It was of considerable size, being four or five acres in extent, and was surrounded on three sides by a palisade some fourteen feet in height, of newly-sawn timber. The wall of the prison formed the fourth side of the square. In each corner of the inclosure was placed a clump of six little wooden huts. Two low fences ran across the inclosure at right angles to each other, dividing the space into four equal squares. Where the fences crossed each other there was an inclosure a few yards across, and in this were two sentry-boxes with soldiers, musket in hand, standing by them. A few men were listlessly moving about, while others were digging and working in small garden patches into which the inclosures were divided. The policeman who accompanied Godfrey led him to one of the little huts. He opened the door and went in. A young man was sitting there.
"I have brought you a companion," the policeman said. "He will share your hut with you. You can teach him what is required." With this brief introduction he closed the door behind him and left. The young man had risen, and he and Godfrey looked hard at each other.
"Surely we have met before!" the prisoner said. "I know your face quite well."