When I regained consciousness I found myself in the prison hospital with warders rubbing salt into my wounds. I asked after Mascha, and was informed that she was still alive, and recovering. One morning, while exercising in the prison yard, I saw her for a few brief moments, and she told me the story I have narrated. Two days later my warder announced that we had both been condemned by General Martianoff as assisting in the dissemination of revolutionary propaganda, and sentenced to hard labour for life in the Siberian mines! Then I made a solemn vow of revenge, and from that moment became a Nihilist. FOOTNOTES [1] “Security Section” of the Secret Police. [2] Chief of police. CHAPTER II. ON TRACKLESS SNOWS. During six weary months I had been kept in solitary confinement in a small, cold, ill-lit cell in the Fortress of Peter and Paul at Petersburg, whither I had been transferred from Mstislavl. Dispirited by solitude, weakened by lack of exercise, and ill through want of proper medical attention, I began to fear that the confinement would cause my reason to give way; therefore it was with a feeling of relief that one day I greeted the announcement of my warder that we were to start for Siberia on the morrow. A detailed description of the frightful hardships of my long and terrible journey would fill a volume, but it is only my intention to outline them briefly. With a hundred other men and women of all ages we left the grim fortress at midnight, a sorry, smileless band, whose clanking chains formed an ominous accompaniment to the loud shouts and cracking of whips of our Cossack escorts. We were each attired in grey kaftan, strong knee-boots, and sheepskin bonnet. Our breasts bore a metal plate with a number, while strapped over our shoulders was the rug, the mess tin, and the wooden spoon that comprised our travelling kit. With ankles fettered by long heavy chains held to the waist by means of a rope, we were fastened together in gangs and passed out upon the Chudova road on the first stage of the weary tramp to that bourne whence few exiles return. The rumbling of the springless carts in the rear, for those who might fall ill on the way, awoke the echoes of the silent thoroughfares, and following us were several Cossacks who with lanterns carefully examined the road over which we had passed, in order that no letter should be dropped clandestinely.