f seizing some kind of a vessel along the coast, in which we
could make a journey from island to island, and so reach the nearest
Russian port. Having thus made our plans, the first thing we
determined to do was to divert the attention of the Japanese from us,
by assuming a cheerful demeanor, and suffering no complaint to escape
us. To our great joy, we were successful. It is true that the
soldiers, who mounted guard, did not sleep at their posts during the
night, but they troubled themselves less about us than formerly, and
sat round the fire, smoking their pipes and playing at draughts. The
officer still went the rounds every half hour, with his men, but he
then sat down in a corner, and amused himself by reading. In the
meantime, we sought to provide ourselves with such things as were
indispensable to our flight. Every day we put aside some of the rice
broth, which continued to be our usual food, and having dried it
during the night, put it into bags, which we tied to our girdles, or
under our arms. One day, whilst we were walking outside of the town,
one of the sailors found a fire-steel. He immediately put his foot
upon it, and stooping down under pretence of pulling up his stocking,
slipped it into his pocket. We stole some flints from our attendants,
and made tinder by burning an old shirt. "Necessity is the mother of
invention," says an old proverb, which, in our case, spoke truly, for
by untiring perseverance we succeeded in constructing a compass,
which, though of course imperfect, answered every purpose. After many
entreaties, we procured from our attendants a couple of needles, under
pretence of mending our clothes. Pretending that we had lost them, we
devoted them to the manufacture of our compass. Through repeated
rubbings on a magnetic stone, which Chleb Nikow had found, and which
we kept carefully concealed in a corner of the yard, we succeeded in
rendering one of them magnetic, and then fastened it to a little sheet
of copper, which we loosened from the roof of our house. We undertook,
besides this, to manufacture some weapons for our defence, in case of
need, and in this attempt fortune again favored us. We found, among
the grass in the court-yard, a large and sharp chisel, which, most
probably, the carpenters had used in the construction of the house,
and forgotten. We put it carefully by, in order that we might fasten
it to a pole, and use it in the moment of our flight as a spear. We
found, also, a s