k to it. Besides smoking being allowed as useful to ward
off fevers and improve the health of the prisoners, it also had the
effect of adding to their contentment, rendering them more easy of
management, as the fear of the smoking being cut off did more to ensure
ready obedience than even the fear of the stick. Tea was not among the
articles of prison diet; but a samovar was always kept going by Mikail,
and the tea sold to the prisoners at its cost price, and the small sum
paid to the convicts sufficed to provide them with this and with
tobacco.

Vodka was but seldom smuggled in, the difficulty of bringing it in being
great, and the punishment of those detected in doing so being severe. At
times, however, a supply was brought in, being carried, as Godfrey
found, in skins similar to those used for sausages, filled with the
spirit and wound round and round the body. These were generally brought
in when one or other of the prisoners had received a remittance, as most
of them were allowed to receive a letter once every three months; and
these letters, in the case of men who had once been in a good position,
generally contained money. This privilege was only allowed to men after
two years' unbroken good conduct.

Godfrey's teacher in the Tartar language had been recommended to him by
Osip as being the most companionable of the Tartar prisoners. He was a
young fellow of three or four and twenty, short and sturdy, like most of
his race, and with a good-natured expression in his flat face. He was in
for life, having in a fit of passion killed a Russian officer who had
struck him with a whip. He came from the neighbourhood of Kasan in the
far west. Godfrey took a strong liking to him, and was not long before
he conceived the idea that when he made his escape he would, if
possible, take Luka with him. Such companionship would be of immense
advantage, and would greatly diminish the difficulties of the journey.
As for Luka, he became greatly attached to his pupil. The Tartars were
looked down upon by their fellow-prisoners, and the terms of equality
with which Godfrey chatted with them, and his knowledge of the world,
which seemed to the Tartar to be prodigious, made him look up to him
with unbounded respect.

The friendship was finally cemented by an occurrence that took place
three months after Godfrey arrived at the prison. Among the convicts was
a man named Kobylin, a man of great strength. He boasted that he had
committed t