ng his fatherland once more.

Before he commenced his journey into banishment, he was to receive
seventy strokes of the knout, and the chances were that he would
die under the operation, few constitutions being able to endure
its severity. But he did survive it, and the fortitude with which
he bore it awoke the admiration of all. I was obliged to be one of
the spectators of the execution of this bloody sentence, so I had a
full opportunity of witnessing the stoical heroism with which the
unhappy man bore the strokes that tore his flesh from his back and
shoulders. But if I was astonished at this courageous endurance of
bodily pain, I was yet more so when I saw the look of eager
inquiry, that notwithstanding the terrible suffering he was
undergoing, he cast from time to time on his soldier's cap that lay
on the ground quite near him, into which according to the Russian
custom, the spectators were dropping money, and so great was their
admiration of his endurance, that it was filled to the brim with
gold and silver coin, together with bank notes of larger value.
Virtue and crime were so mingled in this man, that it was hard to
form an opinion of him. The love of country, one of the highest of
human emotions, and avarice, almost the lowest, gave the poor
criminal, after receiving the seventieth stroke, strength sufficient
to walk with the support of the jailor's arm to the hospital, from
whence a few weeks after, his wounds being healed, he was sent with
some other criminals to his beloved Siberia.

THE END
-----

[A] Capital punishment is very rare in Russia, murderers escaping with
sentence of banishment.

Transcriber's Notes

In the first story, Pirate Life, there is no section numbered "IV" as
originally published.

Passages in italics are indicated by _underscores_.

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