"If they have large flocks and herds," Godfrey said, "the reward the Russians offer for escaped convicts can't tempt them much. Most likely they are hospitable; almost all these wandering tribes are. If one had luck one might get befriended and stick for a time to one of these tribes in their wanderings south, and then get hold of some other people, and so get passed on. There can't be anything impossible in it, Alexis. We know that travellers have made their way through Africa alone. Mungo Park did, and lots of other people have done so, and some of the negro tribes are, according to all accounts, a deal more savage than the Asiatic tribes. Once among them it doesn't much matter which way one goes, whether it is east to China or west to Persia." Alexis sat and looked with some wonder at his companion. "By the saints, Godfrey Bullen, I begin to understand now how it is that your people, living in a bit of an island which could be pinched out of Russia and never missed, are colonizing half the world; how they go in ships to explore the polar seas, have penetrated Africa in all directions as travellers, go among the wildest people as missionaries. We are brought up to have everything done for us: to think as we are told to think, to have officials keep their eyes over us at every turn, to be punished if we dare to think independently, till we have come to be a nation of grown-up children. You are only a boy, if you will forgive my calling you so, and yet you talk about facing the most horrible dangers as coolly as if you were proposing going for a promenade on the Nevski. We won't talk any more about it now, for you have made me feel quite restless. There, you have been here two hours, and I have forgotten all my duties as host, and have not even offered you a cup of tea; it is shameful." And Alexis brought out a samovar and soon had water boiling and tea made. After they had drunk it they went out of the hut, and Godfrey was introduced to the other exiles. Two of them who lived together were quite old men; they had been professors at the University of Kieff, and were exiled for having in their lectures taught what were considered pernicious doctrines. There were three military and two naval officers, a noble, another doctor, and two sons of merchants. All received him cordially, and Godfrey saw that in any other place the society would be a pleasant one; but there was an air of settled melancholy in the majority of the faces, while the sentry fifty yards away, and the high prison wall behind, seemed ever in their minds.