g it here. I have a home awaiting me--a father,
mother, and sisters--to whom I shall come back as one from the grave.
Why, man, the difficulties are nothing in comparison to the reward. A
journey across Asia is as nothing to the journeys many of my countrymen
have made across Africa. Here there is no fear of fever, of savage
tribes, or savage beasts. It is in comparison a mere pleasure excursion.
I may not succeed next time, just as I did not succeed last year, but
succeed in the end I will."

"I believe you," Mikail said earnestly, infected by Godfrey's
enthusiasm. "Did you not overthrow, as if he were a babe, Kobylin, whom
everyone else feared? Yes, if anyone can do it you can."

At last the long winter was over, the thaw came, and the work at the
mine was renewed. Godfrey was afraid that he might be still kept in the
office, and he spoke to Mikail on the subject; the latter spoke to one
of the officials, and told him that the prisoner Ivan Holstoff
petitioned that he might be again put to work on the mine instead of
being kept in the office, as he felt his health suffering from the
confinement. Two days later Godfrey was called into the governor's room.

"I hear that you have asked to go to the mine again, lad."

"Yes, sir; I like active work better than sitting indoors all day."

The colonel looked at him keenly. "You are doing well here, lad; it will
be a pity to have to begin over again. I can guess what is in your
thoughts. Think it over, lad, don't do anything rash; but if--," and he
hesitated, "if you are headstrong and foolish, remember you will be
better off here than elsewhere, and that I am never very hard on
runaways. That will do; you will go out again with the gang to-morrow."

"Thank you, sir," Godfrey said earnestly, and with a bow returned to his
work at the desk in the next room.

On the following day work at the mine was resumed. Godfrey at once began
his preparations for his flight, and as a first step managed to conceal
under a lump of rock a heavy hammer and a pick used in the work; he had
already laid in a stock of a dozen boxes of matches. The next evening he
said to Mikail when they had lain down for the night,--

"Now, Mikail, I want you to help me."

"So you really mean to go?"

"Yes, my mind is quite made up. I want you to get me in some things from
outside."

"I will get you anything if you will tell me what you want."

"I want most of all two long knives."

"Yes, knives are