a Jew and an outcast, and there was nothing left for me
but to seek for refuge such as I could get among my own persecuted
people.

"Far on into the night I found one, a modest lodging, in which I
hoped I could remain for a day or two while waiting for my passport,
and making the necessary preparations to return to England and shake
the mire of Russia off my feet for ever. It would have been a
thousand times better for me and my dear ones, and for those whose
sympathy and kindness involved them in my ruin, if, instead of going
to that ill-fated house, I had flung myself into the dark waters of
the Neva, and so ended my sorrows ere they had well begun.

"I applied for my passport the next day, and was informed that it
would not be ready for at least three days. The delay was, of course,
purposely created, and before the time had expired a police visit was
paid to the house in which I was lodging, and papers written in
cypher were found within the lining of one of my hats.

"I was arrested, and a guard was placed over the house. Without any
further ceremony I was thrown into a cell in the fortress of Peter
and Paul to await the translation of the cypher. Three days later I
was taken before the chief of police, and accused of having in my
possession papers proving that I was an emissary from the Nihilist
headquarters in London.

"I was told that my conduct had been so suspicious and of late so
disorderly, that I had been closely watched during my stay in St.
Petersburg, with the result that conclusive evidence of treason had
been found against me.

"As I was known to be wealthy, and to have powerful friends in
England, the formality of a trial was dispensed with, and after
eating my heart out for a month in my cell in the fortress, I was
transferred to Moscow to join the next convict train for Siberia.
Arrived there, I for the first time learned my sentence--ten years in
the mines, and then ten in Sakhalin.

"Thus was I doomed by the trick of some police spy to pass what bade
fair to be the remainder of a life that had been so bright and full
of fair promise in hopeless exile, torment, and degradation--and all
because I protested against injustice and made myself obnoxious to
the Russian police.

"As the chain-gang that I was attached to left Moscow, I found to my
intense grief that the good Jew and his wife who had given me shelter
were also members of it. They had been convicted of 'harbouring a
political cons