"There have not been a dozen escapes in the last fifty years," the policeman said. "There are great numbers get away from their prisons or employments every year, but the authorities do not trouble about them; they may take to the mountains or forests, and live on game for a few months in summer, but when winter arrives they must come in and give themselves up." "What happens to them then?" Godfrey asked. "Perhaps nothing but solitary confinement for a bit, perhaps a beating with rods, just according to the temper of the chief official at the time. Perhaps if it is a bad case they are sent to the mines for a bit; that is what certainly happens when they are political prisoners." "Why can't they get right away?" "Where are they to go to?" the officer said with a laugh. "To the south there are sandy deserts where they would certainly die of thirst; to the north trackless forests, cold that would freeze a bullock solid in a night, great rivers miles wide to cross, and terrible morasses, to say nothing of the wolves who would make short work of you. The native tribes to the west, and the people of the desert, are all fierce and savage, and would kill anyone who came among them merely for his clothes; and, besides, they get a reward from government for every escaped prisoner they bring in alive or dead. No, we don't want bolts or bars to keep prisoners in here. The whole land is a prison-house, and the prisoners know well enough that it is better to live under a roof and to be well fed there than to starve in the forest, with the prospect of a flogging at the end of their holiday. Still there are thousands take to the woods in the summer. The government does not care. Why should it? It is spared the expense of feeding them, and if they starve to death or kill each other off in their quarrels (for the greater part of them would think no more of taking life than of killing a fowl) there is an end of all further trouble about them, for you understand, it is only the men who have life sentences, the murderers, and so on, that attempt to run away; the short-sentence men are not such fools. "No," he went on kindly, seeing that Godfrey looked depressed at what he had heard; "whatever you do don't think of running away. If you behave well, and gain the good opinion of the authorities, you won't find yourself uncomfortable. You will be made a clerk or a store-keeper, and will have a good deal of liberty after a time. If you try to run away, you will probably be sent to the mines; and though it is not so bad there as they say, it is bad enough."