Although the St. Petersburg newspapers seldom obtain any information concerning the movements of the police—at least not until it is several days old—no less than two of the morning journals announced, in their issue for January 11, that Felix Shamarin, the Nihilist, and his sister, had been arrested on the previous night at the Moscow terminus, and that Inspector Victor Sandoff was apprehended an hour later on a charge of aiding the aforesaid Felix Shamarin in his attempt to escape.
The assassination of the Czar could hardly have created more surprise and consternation throughout the city, and when the true facts became known, as they did in time, much pity was felt for Sandoff, and not a few expressed the opinion that he could not have acted differently under the circumstances.
But pity and public opinion have nothing in common with the Russian government. In spite of the high rank of the offender, Victor Sandoff was brought to trial three weeks after his arrest, convicted, sentenced to a term of ten years at hard labor in the Czar’s Siberian gold mines, and sent off post haste to begin his term of banishment. He attempted no defense, nor would any have been possible. The testimony of Zamosc and Poussin was beyond question, and the passport that had been taken from Shamarin was a still more damning bit of evidence.
Felix Shamarin and his sister had left St. Petersburg on the way to Siberia ten days earlier—for the devoted girl, despite her youth and beauty, was sentenced to share his punishment for the part she had played in his attempted escape. Neither of them was aware of Sandoff’s arrest. They believed that his perfidy was responsible for their own fate, and their hearts were full of bitterness and hatred toward him. Nor did Sandoff in turn know what had become of the Shamarins. All information was refused him. He rightly attributed his downfall to Serge Zamosc, but he was ignorant of the connection between the latter and his uncle, Count Sandoff. Not for an instant did he suspect the truth.
Two weeks after Sandoff’s conviction, the papers briefly announced that the ministry had appointed Serge Zamosc to fill the vacant office of Inspector of the Third Section, and a short time later it was rumored in club and social circles of the city that his Imperial Majesty the Czar had been graciously pleased, for family reasons, to permit one half of Victor Sandoff’s estate to revert to Count Boris Sandoff. So all the actors in the Shamarin affair received their reward. Zamosc attained the height of his ambition and the sum of ten thousand rubles, Count Sandoff replenished his bank account and entered on a fresh course of dissipation, and the rest—went to Siberia.
CHAPTER III.
THE GOLD MINES OF KARA.
In the background a murky, leaden colored sky. Outlined against it, ranges of low hills scantily clad with stunted larches and pines and whitened by a light fall of snow. At their base a stream, narrow and rapid, brawling between scattered rocks and huge shapeless mounds of gravel and sand. In the foreground a straggling village of whitewashed cabins and long barracks of unpainted logs, with a few more pretentious houses with tin roofs, and a black, weather beaten log prison, in the open space before which stand a group of Cossacks in sheepskin boots and dark green uniforms, leaning moodily upon their Berdan rifles.
Such was the scene on a dreary January morning in that portion of the Siberian gold mine settlements known as Middle Kara.
Within the gloomy prison the convicts have answered to the morning roll call, and are now taking their breakfast of weak tea and rye bread. A moment later the heavy doors are thrown open and the mournful procession files out, a haggard, toil worn group of men, wearing long gray overcoats with yellow diamonds on their backs. The Cossacks shoulder their rifles, surround the convicts front and rear, and at the sharp word of command from the officer in charge, the column is moving briskly up the dreary valley to begin another day’s relentless toil.
A sad and hopeless place is this valley of the Kara River, lined at intervals, for a distance of nearly twenty miles, by the prisons and settlements that constitute the Czar’s convict mines. The mines themselves consist of a series of open placers, stretching at irregular intervals along the Kara River—a river in name only. From these placers the convicts extract yearly, by the sweat of their brow, about 3,600 pounds of pure gold—all of which goes into the Czar’s private purse. The misery and suffering of the unfortunate beings who are condemned to spend their days here in hard labor, is not unknown to the civilized world. It need not be dwelt upon further.