"Well, they don't, at least not at any of the large prisons; but in some of the small establishments, with perhaps a brutal drunken captain or major as governor, no doubt it may be done sometimes." "Well, I will take my chance of it." "And when do you think of starting?" Alexis asked after a pause. "Directly. I have only to decide how I am to get out after the door is locked, and to make a rope of some sort to climb the fence with. The blankets tied together will do for that. As to the getting out there is no difficulty. One only has to throw a blanket over that cross beam, get up on that, and get off one of the lining boards, displace a few tiles, crawl through." "I have half a mind to go with you, Godfrey." "Have you, Alexis? I should be awfully glad, but at the same time I would not say a word to persuade you to do it. You know I make light of it, but I know very well that there will be some danger and a tremendous lot of hardship to be gone through." "I don't think I am afraid of that, Godfrey," Alexis said seriously. "It is not that I have been thinking of ever since you began to talk to me of getting away. I consider it is a hundred to one against success; but, as you say, if we fail and get brought back no great harm is done. If we get killed or die of hunger and thirst, again no harm is done, for certainly life is not a thing to cling to when one is a prisoner in Siberia; but it is not that. You see I am differently situated to you. If you do succeed in getting away you go home, and you are all right; if I succeed in getting away what is to become of me? I speak Russian and German, but there would be no return for me to Russia unless some day when a new Czar ascends the throne, or on some such occasion, when a general amnesty is granted; but even that would hardly extend to political prisoners. What am I to do? So far as I can see I might starve, and after all one might almost as well remain here as starve in Pekin or in some Chinese port. Granted that I could work my way back to Europe on board ship, what should I do if I landed at Marseilles or Liverpool? I could not go through the streets shouting in German 'I am a doctor, who wants to be cured?'"