l very well to go out for a summer holiday,
but that is a very different thing from attempting an escape. I was a
fool to try it, but I had such a longing to be in the woods that I could
not help it. So now I shall be obliged to work here for a couple of
years longer before I can live outside the prison. I am here for
knocking down my colonel. We were both in love with the same girl. She
liked me best, and her father liked him best. He was a tyrannical brute.
One day he insulted me before her, and I knocked him down. I was tried
for that, and he trumped up a lot of other charges against me; and there
was no difficulty in getting plenty of hounds to swear to them. So you
see here I am with a ten years' sentence. I don't know that I am not
lucky."

"How is that?" Godfrey asked.

"There were half a dozen fellows in the regiment--I was one of them--who
ventured to think for themselves. We had secret meetings, and were in
communication with men of other regiments. Well, I was sent off before
anything came of it. But they got hold of the names of the others when
they arrested some Nihilists at Kieff, and they were all sent out here
for life. I met one of them a few months back, and he told me so. So you
see it was rather lucky that I knocked down the colonel when I did.
Besides, it is ever so much better to be a convict than a political. I
don't know how it was you had the luck to get turned in with us. I can
tell you there is no comparison between their lot and ours. Still it is
hateful, of course, living among such a gang as these fellows."

"They look pretty bad," Godfrey said.

"Bad is not the word for it," the other said. "A man I know who works as
a clerk in the office told me that there are about two thousand two
hundred prisoners in the six prisons of Kara, but of these only about a
hundred and fifty are women. They are even worse than the men, for of
the hundred and fifty there are a hundred and twenty-five murderesses,
and of the others twelve are classed as vagabonds, and I suppose most of
these are murderesses too. Out of the two thousand men there are about
six hundred and seventy murderers. That is not such a big proportion as
among the women, though, as there are nearly seven hundred classed as
vagabonds, you would not be far wrong if you put down every other man as
a murderer."

"It is horrible," Godfrey said.

"Well, it is not pleasant; but you must remember that a great many of
these murderers may be