red. He can, according to the way he strikes, cut the flesh or
not each stroke. If it bleeds the man seldom dies, if it doesn't there
is little chance for him. There are several ways of flogging the
prisoner, and his friends generally bribe the executioner; then he
strikes with all his strength the first blow that is terrible, but it
seems to numb the flesh somehow, and afterwards he does not strike so
hard, and the prisoner hardly feels the blows. The worst is when he hits
softly at first and then harder and harder, then the man feels every
blow to the end; but they are obliged to hit hard, if not they get
flogged themselves. I saw a case where the executioner had been well
bribed and, therefore, hit gently, and the prisoner was taken down and
he was tied up in his place and got twenty lashes. Years ago they used
the _plete_ at all the prisons, now they only use it at three prisons,
where the worst criminals are sent, and this is one of them."

A week later they were both discharged from the hospital and returned to
the ward. The first thing they heard on entering it was that Koshkin had
died the night before. Godfrey went back to his work in the office. He
was doubtful how he should be received in the ward, but he found that,
except by Kobylin and four or five others, he was welcomed quite
cordially.

"You have done us all a service," Osip said. "There was sure to have
been trouble sooner or later, and that flogging will cow these fellows
for some time. This is only the second there has been since I came
here--I mean, of course, at this prison. Besides, Mikail is a good
fellow, and we all like him, and everyone would have been sorry if he
had been killed."

"What is he in for? I never asked before. Of course, I see that he has
the murderer's badge on his back. Do you know how it happened? I never
heard him speak of it."

"Yes, he told us about it one evening, that was before he became
starosta. Some vodka had been smuggled in and he had more than was good
for him, and that opened his lips. He had been a charcoal-burner and
having had the good fortune to escape the conscription he married. She
was a pretty girl, and it seems that the son of a rich proprietor had
taken a fancy to her, and when the next year's conscription came he
managed by some unfair means to get Mikail's name put down again on the
list. Such things can be done, you know, by a man with influence. Mikail
ran away and took to the woods. He was hunte