nother family and did the
same, but this time the police got on his track and caught him. Nine
lives he took altogether, not in a passion or because they were cruel to
him. I heard him say that he was quite a favourite, and how he used to
sing to them and was trusted in every way. No, I say it isn't fair that
I, who did nothing but just pay a man for a blow, should get as much as
those two."

"It does seem rather hard on you, but you see there cannot be a great
variety of punishments. You killed a man, and so you had sentence for
life. They can't give more than that, and if they were to give less
there would be more murders than there are, for every one would think
that they could kill at least one person without being punished very
heavily for it."

"I don't call mine murder at all," Luka said. "I would not kill a man
for his money; but this was just a fight. Whiz went his whip across my
face, and then whiz went my arrow."

"Oh, it is not so bad, Luka, I grant. If you had killed a man in cold
blood I would have had nothing to do with you. I could not be friends
with a man who was a cold-blooded murderer. I could never give him my
hand, or travel with him, or sleep by his side. I don't feel that with
you. In the eye of the law you committed a murder, and the law does not
ask why it was done, or care in what way it was done. The law only says
you killed the man, and the punishment for that is imprisonment for
life. But I, as a man, can see that there is a great difference in the
moral guilt, and that, acting as you did in a fit of passion, suddenly
and without premeditation, and smarting under an assault, it was what we
should in England call manslaughter. Before I asked you to teach me,
when Osip first said that he should recommend me to try you, I saw by
the badge on your coat that you were in for murder, and if it had not
been that he knew how it came about, I would not have had anything to do
with you, even if I had been obliged to give up altogether my idea of
learning your language."

The starosta continued a steady friend to Godfrey. The lad acted as a
sort of deputy to him, and helped him to keep the accounts of the money
he spent for the convicts, and the balance due to them, and once did him
real service. As Mikail's office was due to the vote of the prisoners,
his authority over them was but slight, and although he was supported by
a considerable majority of them there were some who constantly opposed
him