Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia

by G. A. Henty

"I am very much obliged to you, doctor, for your kindness," Godfrey said. "I will take care to remain Ivan Holstoff. How much am I to pay for the carriage?"

"Your friend the Buriat has seen to that, and handed the governor money for a vehicle there and back, as the soldier in charge of you will have to return."

"It is very good of him," Godfrey said gratefully. "Please tell him when you see him how much obliged I am to him for his kindness to me."

"I think my patient will do," the doctor said. "He is quieter and less feverish this evening. I think he will pull round; and now good bye! I think you have done right in giving yourself up. You are but a lad yet, and with good conduct, now that you are entered only as a vagabond, you will get leave to work outside the prison in two or three years, and get a permit to settle anywhere in Siberia a couple of years later."

The next morning at daybreak Godfrey was placed in a vehicle. A soldier mounted by the side of the driver, the latter shouted to his horses, and started at full gallop. Soon after leaving the town they passed a caravan of forty carts carrying tea. The soldier, who appeared a chatty fellow, told him they would be three months on their way to Moscow. At a town named Verchne Udinsk they regained the main road and turned east and continued their journey through Chita, a town of three thousand inhabitants, to Nertchinsk, a distance of six hundred miles. The country was hilly, and for the most part wooded, but varied at times by rolling prairies on which large herds of cattle were grazing. The journey was far more pleasant than that Godfrey had before made, for being no longer regarded as a political prisoner his guard chatted with him freely; and at night, instead of having to sleep in the vehicle in the open air, he was lodged in the convict stations, which, as the season was late, were for the most part unoccupied. He was glad, however, when he arrived at Nertchinsk, for the jolting of the springless vehicle was very trying. He did not see the governor of the prison, but was at once assigned to a cell there on the guard handing to the authorities the official report of the governor at Kiakhta.

"You are to go on again to-morrow," the warder said to him that evening. "We are full here, and there is a party going on to Kara. You will go with them. The barber will be here to shave you directly. You have not been out very long, judging by the length of your hair. Here is your prison dress. You must put that on to-morrow instead of the one you have on, but you may carry yours with you if you like, it will be useful to you when your term in the prison is done."

Accordingly the next morning Godfrey was taken into the court-yard, where some fifty other prisoners were assembled, and ten minutes later marched off under a guard of eight mounted Cossacks. He carried his peasant's clothes and fur coat rolled up into a bundle on his shoulder, and had, after he changed his dress, sewn up his money in the collar of his jacket with a needle and thread he had brought with him, keeping out some twenty roubles for present purposes. The journey occupied five days, the marches averaging twenty-five miles apiece. The prisoners talked and sung by the way, picked the blackberries and raspberries that grew thickly on the bushes by the wayside, and at night slept in the stations, their food consisting of very fair broth, with cabbage in it, meat, and black bread. Godfrey was asked no questions. He did not know whether this was because the convicts thought only of themselves, and had no curiosity about their companions, or whether it was a sort of etiquette observed among them. Godfrey was surprised to find how much the country differed from the ideas he had formed of Siberia.

The forests were beautiful with a great variety of foliage. Late lilies bloomed by the roadside with flowers of other kinds, of whose names he was ignorant. To the north was a chain of hills of considerable height. The forest was alive with birds, and he frequently caught sight of squirrels running about among the branches. No objection was offered by the guards to their making purchases at the villages through which they passed, except that they would not allow them to buy spirits. At the first opportunity Godfrey laid out four or five roubles in tea and tobacco, some of which he presented to the guards, and divided the rest among his fellow-prisoners, who forthwith dubbed him "the count." At length Kara was reached. It was not a town, but purely a convict settlement, the prisoners being divided among four or five prisons situated two or three miles from each other. They were first marched to the most central of these. Here they were inspected by the governor, who had the details of each case reported by the authorities of the prisons they had left. They were at once divided into parties in accordance with the vacancies in the various prisons.

Only four were left behind. These were taken to a guardroom until allotted to the various wards. One by one they were taken out, Godfrey being the last to be summoned. He was conducted to a room in which several convicts were seated writing; through this a long passage led to the governor's room.

"You are known as Ivan Holstoff," the governor said when the warder had retired.