"I don't say that it is not possible, for some have done it; but I suppose for every one who has tried it, hundreds have died. There is no living in the mountains in winter. Men do get free. There are a great many private mines, and in some of these they ask no questions, but are glad enough to engage anyone who comes along. After working there as a free labourer for a couple of years it is comparatively easy to move somewhere else, and in time one may even settle down as a free labourer in a town; but there is no getting right away then, for no one can leave Siberia without a passport giving particulars of all his life.
"You are not thinking of trying, are you? because, if you will take my advice, you won't. It is all very well to go out for a summer holiday, but that is a very different thing from attempting an escape. I was a fool to try it, but I had such a longing to be in the woods that I could not help it. So now I shall be obliged to work here for a couple of years longer before I can live outside the prison. I am here for knocking down my colonel. We were both in love with the same girl. She liked me best, and her father liked him best. He was a tyrannical brute. One day he insulted me before her, and I knocked him down. I was tried for that, and he trumped up a lot of other charges against me; and there was no difficulty in getting plenty of hounds to swear to them. So you see here I am with a ten years' sentence. I don't know that I am not lucky."
"How is that?" Godfrey asked.
"There were half a dozen fellows in the regiment—I was one of them—who ventured to think for themselves. We had secret meetings, and were in communication with men of other regiments. Well, I was sent off before anything came of it. But they got hold of the names of the others when they arrested some Nihilists at Kieff, and they were all sent out here for life. I met one of them a few months back, and he told me so. So you see it was rather lucky that I knocked down the colonel when I did. Besides, it is ever so much better to be a convict than a political. I don't know how it was you had the luck to get turned in with us. I can tell you there is no comparison between their lot and ours. Still it is hateful, of course, living among such a gang as these fellows."
"They look pretty bad," Godfrey said.
"Bad is not the word for it," the other said. "A man I know who works as a clerk in the office told me that there are about two thousand two hundred prisoners in the six prisons of Kara, but of these only about a hundred and fifty are women. They are even worse than the men, for of the hundred and fifty there are a hundred and twenty-five murderesses, and of the others twelve are classed as vagabonds, and I suppose most of these are murderesses too. Out of the two thousand men there are about six hundred and seventy murderers. That is not such a big proportion as among the women, though, as there are nearly seven hundred classed as vagabonds, you would not be far wrong if you put down every other man as a murderer."
"It is horrible," Godfrey said.
"Well, it is not pleasant; but you must remember that a great many of these murderers may be otherwise pretty honest fellows. A great many of them have killed a man or woman when mad with vodka; some of the others have done it in a fit of jealousy; a few perhaps out of vengeance for some great wrong. The rest, I grant, are thoroughly bad.
"By the way, my name is Osip Ivanoff. There are two or three decent fellows in our ward. I will introduce you to them this evening. It makes it pleasanter keeping together. We have got some cards, and that helps pass away the summer evenings. In winter it is too dark to play. There is only one candle in the ward; so there is nothing for it but to lay up and go to sleep as soon as it gets dark. There is the prison. I dare say you won't be sorry when you are back. The first three or four days' work is always trying."