d for two or three months in
vain. Then someone betrayed him, and one morning he woke up in a hut he
had built for himself and saw the place was surrounded by soldiers.

"With the officers was the man who had injured him. Mikail was mad with
fury, and rushing out with a big club he had cut he stretched the fellow
dead on the ground--and served him right. However, of course Mikail was
taken, tried, and condemned. He had killed a noble's son, and three
weeks later was on his way to Siberia. His wife has followed him, and is
living now in a village two miles away. Another six months and Mikail
will have served his ten years, which is the least time a murderer can
serve before he gets leave to live outside the prison. He is sure to get
it then, his conduct has been always good, and no doubt this affair will
count in his favour. His wife came out two years after he was sent here.
She keeps herself by spinning and helping at a farm. It has been a good
thing for Mikail, for it has kept him straight. If it had not been for
that he would have taken to the woods long ago."

"I don't call that a murder," Godfrey said indignantly. "If I had been
on the jury I would never have convicted him. He was treated illegally
and had the right to resist."

"I don't blame him very much myself," Osip said. "Of course it would
have been wiser to have submitted, and then to have tried to get off
serving, but I don't suppose anyone would have listened to him. If it
hadn't been a noble he killed I have no doubt he would have got off."

"But you are noble yourself, Osip."

"Yes, but that does not give me any marked advantage at present. Of
course it will make a difference when I get out. My friends will send me
money, and I shall live at Tobolsk and marry some wealthy gold-miner's
daughter, and be in the best society. Oh, yes, it is an advantage being
noble born, even in Siberia."

Godfrey was quite touched with the joy that Luka manifested when, on his
return from work, he found him in the ward. "Ah, my master," he
exclaimed, with tears in his eyes, "why did you not tell me that you
were watching? I would have kept awake all night and would have thrown
myself on that dog; it would have made no matter if he had killed me. It
would not have hurt me so much as it did to see you bleeding."

"You must not call me master," Godfrey said, holding out his hand, which
the Tartar seized and pressed to his forehead. "You and I are friends,
there are no