To Godfrey the sensation of being whirled through the air as fast as the horses could gallop was, after his long confinement, perfectly delightful, and he fairly shouted with joy and excitement. Now that they were past Ekaterinburg, Godfrey's guard, a good-tempered-looking young fellow, seemed to consider that it was no longer necessary to preserve an absolute silence, which had no doubt been as irksome to him as to his companion. "We can talk now. Why are you so merry?" "To be in the air again is glorious," Godfrey said, "I should not mind how long the journey lasted if it were like this. How far do we travel in carriages?" "To Tiumen, 300 versts; then we take steamer again, that is if you go farther." "You don't know where we are going to then?" "Not at all, it will be known at Tiumen; that is where these things are settled generally, but people like you are under special orders. You don't look very wicked;" and he smiled in a friendly way as he looked at the lad beside him. "I am not wicked at all, not in the way you think," Godfrey said. "Do not talk about that," the soldier interrupted, "I must not know anything about you; talk about other things, but not why you are here." Godfrey nodded. "If we go on beyond Tiumen we go by steamer, do we not?" "Yes, through Tobolsk to Tomsk, beyond that we shall drive. You are lucky, you people, that you drive, the others walk; it is long work, but not so long as it used to be, they say. I have been told that in the old times, when they started on foot from Moscow it took them sometimes two years to reach the farthest places. Now they have the railway, and the steamers on the river as far as Tomsk." "How do they take them in the steamers?" "They take them in great barges that are towed; we passed two on our way to Perm. They hold five or six hundred, there is a great iron cage on deck, and they let half the number up at a time in order to get air. They are always going along at this time of year, for they all go early in the season so as to get to the journey's end before the frosts set in." "But surely all these men cannot be guilty of great crimes," Godfrey said, "for I have heard that about twenty thousand a year are sent away?" "No, many of them are only lazy fellows who drink and will not work. We sent away three from my village the year before I was taken for a soldier. They were lazy and would not do their share of work, so the heads of the village met and decided that they should go to Siberia. They drew up a paper, which was sent to be confirmed by the judge of the district, and then soldiers came and took them away." "But you don't mean to say," Godfrey said, "that men are sent to prison all their lives because they are lazy."