Kalyùshny told Masyukov he must consult his comrades before undertaking the mission, and asked that we might be allowed to take counsel together. This was agreed to, and we all met to consider and discuss the circumstances—a thing that had not been heard of in Kara since the prison had been put under the gendarmerie. The tidings given us by the unhappy husband and brother regarding the hunger-strike of the women moved us deeply. When he ceased speaking a stillness as of death reigned over our gathering, and then the usually silent Yatzèvitch began the debate. Without much discussion we decided that another delegate must accompany Kalyùshny, and that they should try to prevail on the women to desist from their protest, assuring them that we should ourselves now take over the arrangement of the business with Masyukov. To the commandant we declared that he must apologise to the three ladies. It was arranged that our two delegates should be taken to the women’s prison, fifteen versts (about ten miles) distant, accompanied by gendarmes, though all this was entirely against the regulations. When they returned from their mission, and we had assembled to hear the result, they told us that the famishing women absolutely refused to be contented with an apology from the commandant. They all three declared that they would only desist from their protest if Masyukov were withdrawn from Kara. The majority of us—myself among the number—saw at once that this was an impossible demand. The reactionary Government, with Count Dmitri Tolstoi at its head, would never recall the commandant, even if all the “politicals” in Siberia starved themselves to death; but we thought we might perhaps find a way out of the difficulty if we could induce the commandant to ask of his own accord to be transferred elsewhere on some pretext or other. To this the commandant on his side, and the ladies on theirs, consented; but the latter insisted positively that if Masyukov had not taken his departure within a certain fixed period of some months, they would again refuse food and persist in their protest to the bitter end. This, as might readily be foreseen, meant merely a postponement of the question. But I must return for the present to our own affairs in the men’s prison. CHAPTER XXVII THE “COLONISTS”—FURTHER EVENTS IN THE WOMEN’S PRISON—THE HUNGER-STRIKES—THE YAKUTSK MASSACRE The summer of 1888 brought troubles also to us in the men’s prison, though they had nothing to do with the grievances of the women.