Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia

by G. A. Henty

Then he dismissed the subject from his thoughts and turned to a pile of papers before him.

Godfrey, on leaving the presence of the governor, was taken by the warder to one of the prison blocks, and was handed over to the prison official in charge of it. He was taken to a small room and there furnished with a bag in which to keep his underclothing and other effects.

"You will use this bag for a pillow at night," the official said. "What money you have you can either give to me to take charge of for you, or can hand it over to the head man of the room to lay out for you as you require it, or you can keep it yourself. If you choose to hold it yourself you had better keep a very sharp look-out; not that there are any professional thieves here, it is only for very serious offences that men are sent east of Irkutsk."

Godfrey thanked the official, but said that what little he had he might as well keep with him. His money in paper was safely hidden in the lining of his convict jacket, and as he knew that that would be worn by night as well as by day, it was perfectly safe there. He was provided with some flannel shirts and other underclothing.

"I see you have underclothing of your own," the official said; "but of course you have the regular allowance given you; if you run short of money you can sell them. Now come along with me."

Godfrey was led into a large room, where the scene somewhat widely differed from what he had pictured to himself would be the interior of a prison at the dreaded mines of Kara. The room was large and fairly lofty; the walls were clean and whitewashed; down both sides ran benches, six feet wide, similar to one he had seen in an English guard-house. There were some sixty men in the room; some of these were lying upon the bed-places smoking pipes, others were sitting on them talking together or mending their clothes, and several parties were engaged in card-playing. Save for the ugly gray uniforms with the coloured patches in the centre of the back, significant of the term of imprisonment to which their wearers had been sentenced, and the strangely shaved heads of those present, he might have been in a singularly free-and-easy barrack-room. Most of the men looked up as the official entered.

"A new comrade," he said. "Mikail Stomoff, do you take him in your charge;" and having said this he at once left the room.

Mikail Stomoff, a big powerful man, came across to Godfrey. He was the starosta or head man of the ward, elected to the position by the votes of his fellow-prisoners. It was his duty to keep order and prevent quarrelling, and to see that the ward was swept out and kept tidy. He transacted all business for the prisoners, made their purchases outside, and was generally the intermediary between them and the authorities. In return for all this he was free from labour at the mines.

"Well, my lad," he said, "you began early. How long are you in for, and what have you done?"