As I was leaving Alagir there was a strange incident. A well-dressed man, whom I mistook for a member of the Russian Secret Police, came up to me, and tried to get me to say things against the Russian Government and my treatment. “You can speak to me as to a mate,” said he. “I also am a politikan. What happened to you? You are exhausted. Never mind. Bear up.” He spoke a few words aside to my guard, and then went on again. “I have arranged,” said he. “You won’t go just yet. You must come along with me and have a meal, then I will take both of you in a cart, and we can have a chat.” I felt suspicious and refused.
Meanwhile two young men came up and entered into conversation with him, and they asked me my story. I told them, and one said, “We represent the Society for the help of educated Ossetines in distress; we beg you to receive our help.” Then one gave me five separate ten-copeck pieces and a slip of paper with his address, saying, “If you are in difficulty write to me. You will need money before you are released—to this little you are welcome.”
Again I refused and thanked them profusely. Then the first man said he must have offended me. I insisted that he hadn’t, and we parted. I have every reason to believe that they were very honest and good people, though their manner was not very assuring. My guard, who had patiently waited, now went on and I followed.
From Ardon I was sent to a place called Ard-Garon, where I spent the night at the house of a hospitable Ossetine. I arrived in the evening, and my host took me out for a walk on the steppes to what he called a “mayovka,” so called because it was held in the month of May. It was an evening picnic of about fifty Ossetine men. There were no women. They had buckets of araka and baskets of mutton and bread. I politely partook of their viands.
From Ard-Garon I was exported to Gizel, where my good fortune seemed to suffer eclipse. I was thrust, in spite of my protests, into the village gaol, there to exist from three in the afternoon till eight next morning. I had had nothing to eat all day and nothing was obtainable here. Only, in answer to my complaint, the gaoler put in a pail of dirty water that I might drink if I wanted to.
At Ardon an official had said to me, “We can’t keep you here because we’ve nowhere to put you. You wouldn’t like to lie in prison, would you? Have they prisons in England?... Clean ones, I suppose. But ours are dirty. Would you like to see ours?” He burst into a guffaw of laughter. But the Ataman said to him, “No, no, you needn’t go out of your way to do that.”
I suppose the place was ugly. I did not guess that on the succeeding night I should be for the first time in a Russian gaol.
It was a verminous cell, with holes in the rotten flooring and no glass in the barred windows. The door was cased in iron; the walls hung in tatters of broken plaster. There were no seats, but at one end some planks served for a bed. My companions were an Ossetine and an Ingoosh, both charged with stealing, and a madman, who was, I understood, a regular tenant of the den. I had obviously nothing to do with these people and didn’t belong to their class. They were as selfish as possible, and I suppose I should have had a bad night but for the fact that I was so worn out. I huddled myself together on the planks and slept. At Vladikavkaz next day, the Chief of Police inspected my passport, and bade me take my liberty and “live with God.”