“Oh, I cried all the time I was doing it, but still I killed them,” was the answer. “It was just God’s will. If He had not willed it I should not have been able to commit the murder; I should have been struck down myself. So it was really God who made me do it.”

My friend (from whom Lissenko seemed to stand a good deal) then asked—

“Well, and would you murder me, if you met me in a safe place?”

“If I knew you had a lot of money about you I should certainly wring your neck,” said the man, with cheerful frankness. “But there! one doesn’t kill without some good reason!”

Lissenko was at that time carrying on a very risky illegal trade: he was a receiver of “stolen gold,” and smuggled spirits. I must explain that gold could be found in considerable quantities in the neighbourhood and worked with the greatest ease. Equipped with a shovel and a wooden vessel for washing, men and women repaired to the River Kara and other neighbouring streams, and could without difficulty get gold-dust to the value of one or two roubles in a single day. Though strictly prohibited by the Government, this private search for gold is practised almost openly. Those who do not themselves look for gold yet traffic in it; and practically the entire population, except the political prisoners, is engaged in the illicit trade. Nobody—one or two really honest officials perhaps excepted—makes any scruple about infringing the law; thousands make their livelihood in this way, and many even grow rich. I knew whole families, some members of which went off as regularly every day on the quest as though it were the most lawful affair in the world. No one—not even officials—found anything to protest against in this breaking of the law; on the contrary, everyone in the place, except those few persons whose interests were concerned on the other side, looked upon it as quite natural that the gold-seekers should make the most of their labour, and take the treasure that the soil offered. No attention was paid to the arbitrary decree which declared that treasure to be the Tsar’s private property—or, as it was officially expressed, “the property of His Majesty’s Cabinet”; and notwithstanding the heavy expense incurred by the responsible authorities to protect the gold-fields of the district, far more gold is obtained by unlawful than by lawful means. The receivers of the stolen treasure, and other middlemen, can always find a way to convey their merchandise over the border into China, where it fetches a far higher price than that given by “the Cabinet of His Majesty.”

Meanwhile all authorities agree that the illicit gold-finders have conferred immeasurable benefit on the country. They are the true pioneers, who, wandering about the “Taiga” or virgin forests in all directions, seeking deposits of precious metals, are to be thanked for the discovery of numberless gold-fields—among them some of the most prolific of all. Certainly little enough profit falls to the share of the pirates themselves; most of them remain poor and needy all their lives, hardly earning their daily bread; and many of them become slaves of the middlemen. It would take me too long to describe further the lives and doings of these gold pirates; suffice it to say that they inhabit a curiously interesting little world of their own—a state within the state—with its own strictly administered laws and peculiar customs.

CHAPTER XXXI
THE TOUR OF THE HEIR-APPARENT THROUGH SIBERIA—OUR LIFE IN THE PENAL SETTLEMENT—AN INCENSED OFFICIAL

Time passed by much faster in the settlement than in the prison. Busy with the necessary work for establishing our little community, we scarcely noticed the passing of autumn and winter. I can never forget the spring of 1891—the first I enjoyed after the long years of imprisonment; moreover, that spring brought quite unexpected hopes of favours soon to be granted us. A report reached us that the Tsar Alexander III. had decided to issue a manifesto to celebrate the treading of Siberian soil by the Heir-Apparent. This manifesto, it was said, would bring pardon to all convicts, and not even the “politicals” were to be excluded. The official telegram about this—obscurely worded though it was—could not fail to awaken in us hopes of at any rate increased liberty. If the news were correct, it was to be concluded that many of us would shortly be treated as “exiles,” and no longer as convicts. This would improve our situation in a greater or lesser degree according to the locality whither we should be banished. “Politicals” are generally sent to the province of Yakutsk, where conditions of life are in many respects no better than in the settlement at Kara. It must be remembered that Yakutsk is a very sparsely populated province, and lies further from the civilised world than the Transbaikalian province in which Kara is situated. The climate is worse than that of Kara, the winter longer; and in other ways, too, our comrades there were worse off than we. Their post arrived less often than ours, and in many parts of the Yakutsk government “luxuries,” such as tea, sugar, and petroleum, are often not to be procured at all. Even stale black bread is sometimes a rarity, costing twelve to fifteen roubles the pood,[[107]] and is regarded as a delicacy only to be set before an honoured guest. The chief, if not the exclusive, food of the natives consists of fish and meat. The dwellings, too, are worse than the wooden huts of Kara, being simply “yurtas,” i.e. tent-shaped hovels such as the natives live in, built of rough logs, the interstices between which are filled up with earth and turf. Yet most of us were ready to go to these inhospitable regions, for there was always the chance, when once one was numbered in the category of “exiles,” that in time one might be sent to a more advantageous district. Above all, there was greater freedom; for though a place of residence is appointed for each exile, yet they may travel about in the surrounding country for considerable distances. There are more opportunities, too, of seeing people; new additions are always being made to the numbers of the “administrative” exiles in every province, and from them one learns what is going on at home; while, on the other hand, nobody fresh was sent to the penal settlement at Kara during the whole time that I was there. Finally, the exiles in Yakutsk had the prospect of yet another step in advance—they might gain permission to enrol themselves in the peasant class, and in that way win even greater facility of movement within the borders of Siberia. Things do not move very fast, and even if all goes well this favour may only be obtained after ten years’ exile; but one learns patience in Siberia, and many a one will let his thoughts dwell on that distant future: “Ten years! then perhaps there will be a manifesto; and in fifteen or twenty years may come the great event—return to one’s home!”

KARA PRISONERS AT WORK