om, where the scene somewhat widely
differed from what he had pictured to himself would be the interior of a
prison at the dreaded mines of Kara. The room was large and fairly
lofty; the walls were clean and whitewashed; down both sides ran
benches, six feet wide, similar to one he had seen in an English
guard-house. There were some sixty men in the room; some of these were
lying upon the bed-places smoking pipes, others were sitting on them
talking together or mending their clothes, and several parties were
engaged in card-playing. Save for the ugly gray uniforms with the
coloured patches in the centre of the back, significant of the term of
imprisonment to which their wearers had been sentenced, and the
strangely shaved heads of those present, he might have been in a
singularly free-and-easy barrack-room. Most of the men looked up as the
official entered.

"A new comrade," he said. "Mikail Stomoff, do you take him in your
charge;" and having said this he at once left the room.

Mikail Stomoff, a big powerful man, came across to Godfrey. He was the
starosta or head man of the ward, elected to the position by the votes
of his fellow-prisoners. It was his duty to keep order and prevent
quarrelling, and to see that the ward was swept out and kept tidy. He
transacted all business for the prisoners, made their purchases outside,
and was generally the intermediary between them and the authorities. In
return for all this he was free from labour at the mines.

"Well, my lad," he said, "you began early. How long are you in for, and
what have you done?"

"I am in here for being a vagabond," Godfrey said, "and I believe the
punishment for that is five years."

"A vagabond, eh? we have not many of them here. The wanderers generally
work their way west. However, I daresay you had your reasons, and I
don't know that you are not right, for most of us prefer hard work here
to the dulness of the prisons in the west. Now, lad," he went on,
dropping his voice, "if you have got any money do not say a word about
it. You will be robbed to a certainty if you keep it yourself. The best
thing you can do is to hand it over to me, and I will take care of it
for you." Godfrey nodded, and putting his hand in his pocket pulled out
the ten-rouble note he had set aside, and two or three smaller notes,
and slipped them into the man's hand.

"You can have it out as you want it," the man said; "and anything you
want outside I can get for you out