ad forged, but of what had happened afterwards Godfrey was
ignorant. Four men had been arrested or killed; but whether they had
played an important part in the matter he knew not, nor whether others
had shared their fate. All he could say was, that so far as he heard,
numerous arrests had taken place.

But the excitement caused by the news very speedily died away, and they
again became listless and indifferent. All worked for a little time in
their gardens, but beyond that only those who had made some sort of
occupation for themselves had anything to interest themselves actively
in. Sometimes they played chess, draughts, or cards, but they did so, as
Godfrey observed, in a half-hearted manner, with the exception, indeed,
of one of the professors, who was by far the strongest chess-player of
the party, and who passed all his time in inventing problems which, when
complete, he carefully noted down in a book, with their solutions.

"When I am dead," he said one day to Godfrey, who was watching him,
"they will send this book to a nephew of mine; you see I have written
his name and address outside. He is a great chess-player, and will send
it to England or France to be published; and it is pleasant for me to
think that my work, even here in prison, may serve as an amusement to
people out in the world."

Except in the dulness and monotony of the life there was little to
complain of, and Godfrey was surprised to find how far it differed from
his own preconceived notions of the life of a political prisoner in
Siberia. It was only when, by an effort, he looked ahead for years and
tried to fancy the possibility of being so cut off from the world for
life, that he could appreciate the terrible nature of the punishment.
Better a thousand times to be one of the murderers in the prison behind
the wall. They had work to occupy their time, and constantly changing
associates, with the knowledge that by good conduct they would sooner or
later be released and be allowed to live outside the prison.

When at eight o'clock in the evening the prisoners were locked up in
their huts, he endeavoured to learn everything that Alexis Stumpoff knew
of Siberia.

He found that his knowledge was much more extensive than he had
expected. "As I came out nominally, Godfrey, as a free man, I brought
with me every book I could buy on the country, and I almost got them by
heart. It seemed to me that I was likely to be kept here for years, if
not for lif