at
the mines of Kara was so small that they would not have paid if worked
by free labour; but the produce served to lessen the expenses of the
prisons, and the mines afforded work to the convicts. The prisoners
were not forbidden to talk, and Godfrey, who had happened to be placed
next to a young fellow of the better class, learned a good many
particulars as to the mines. He had seen no women at them, and asked if
they were not employed at that labour.

"I never heard of such a thing," the other said. "They have to work;
they wash and mend our clothes, and scrub the floors, and help the
cooks, but that is all. After working for a certain time, according to
the length of their sentence, they are allowed to live out of prison,
and after a still further time are at liberty to settle down anywhere in
Siberia they choose."

"Have you been here long?" Godfrey asked.

"I have been here three years," he said, "and I should be out by this
time if I had not run away last year."

"How did you get on?"

"I got on well enough till the cold weather came. There are plenty of
berries in the woods, and besides we occasionally came down and stole
things from the carts waiting at night at the post-houses. We got a
chest of tea once, and that lasted us all through the summer. There were
ten of us together. Besides that, the people all along the road are very
good to escaped prisoners. They dare not give them anything, because, if
it were known they did so, they would be severely punished; but on the
window-sill of almost every house is placed at night a plate with food
on it, in case any wanderer should come along. Of course when winter
came I had to give myself up."

"Do you think escape altogether is possible?"

"I don't say that it is not possible, for some have done it; but I
suppose for every one who has tried it, hundreds have died. There is no
living in the mountains in winter. Men do get free. There are a great
many private mines, and in some of these they ask no questions, but are
glad enough to engage anyone who comes along. After working there as a
free labourer for a couple of years it is comparatively easy to move
somewhere else, and in time one may even settle down as a free labourer
in a town; but there is no getting right away then, for no one can leave
Siberia without a passport giving particulars of all his life.

"You are not thinking of trying, are you? because, if you will take my
advice, you won't. It is al