lent river Kura, mingled with shouts from the hucksters of the
Avlabar Bazaar (the town's Asiatic quarter) and as a cross motif thrown
into these sounds, the sighing of the wind and the cooing of doves. In
fact, to be here is like being in a drum which a myriad drumsticks are
beating.

Through the bars of the double line of windows on the second and the
third stories peer the murky faces and towsled heads of some of the
inmates. One of the latter spits his furthest into the yard--evidently
with the intention of hitting myself: but all his efforts prove vain.
Another one shouts with a mordant expletive:

"Hi, you! Why do you keep tramping up and down like an old hen? Hold up
your head!"

Meanwhile the inmates continue to intone in concert a strange chant
which is as tangled as a skein of wool after serving as a plaything for
a kitten's prolonged game of sport. Sadly the chant meanders, wavers,
to a high, wailing note. Then, as it were, it soars yet higher towards
the dull, murky sky, breaks suddenly into a snarl, and, growling like a
wild beast in terror, dies away to give place to a refrain which coils,
trickles forth from between the bars of the windows until it has
permeated the free, torrid air.

As I listen to that refrain, long familiar to me, it seems to voice
something intelligible, and agitates my soul almost to a sense of
agony....

Presently, while pacing up and down in the shadow of the building, I
happen to glance towards the line of windows. Glued to the framework of
one of the iron window-squares, I can discern a blue-eyed face.
Overgrown with an untidy sable beard it is, as well as stamped with a
look of perpetually grieved surprise.

"That must be Konev," I say to myself aloud.

Konev it is--Konev of the well-remembered eyes. Even at this moment
they are regarding me with puckered attention.

I throw around me a hasty glance. My own warder is dozing on a shady
bench near the entrance. Two more warders are engaged in throwing dice.
A fourth is superintending the pumping of water by two convicts, and
superciliously marking time for their lever with the formula, "Mashkam,
dashkam! Dashkam, mashkam!"

I move towards the wall.

"Is that you, Konev?" is my inquiry.

"It is," he mutters as he thrusts his head a little further through the
grating. "Yes, Konev I am, but who you are I have not a notion."

"What are you here for?"

"For a matter of base coin, though, to be truthful, I am here
acci