This was, as I have explained, a time of thorough-going reaction in Russia. Sufficient news penetrated the walls of our prison to convince us that there was at the moment no hope whatever of any definite immediate success in the revolutionary movement; and the fact of this being so necessarily caused much brooding over gloomy and even desperate thoughts, to which in prison one is but too prone. If some among us were already troubled by feelings of disillusion and doubts of the validity of our ideal, a further piece of news which arrived at this juncture—totally unexpected and at first incredible—would naturally only serve to heighten dismay. The rumour reached us that Leo Tihomìrov, one of the best-known leaders of the _Naròdnaia Vòlya_, had become a renegade. This man, whom chance alone had saved from death on the scaffold, had fled from Russia in 1882; and it proved to be true that in 1887 he had written the pamphlet, _Why I Ceased to be a Revolutionist_, in which he forswore his former convictions, and by which he gained the Tsar’s pardon. He received permission to return to Russia, and henceforth devoted his pen to the service of the existing Government, of which he is to this day a supporter. This instance of apostasy—unique in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement—made the deepest impression throughout all Russia. “If such a man as Tihomìrov has become a monarchist, and acknowledges the absolute power of the Tsar, why then I, poor sinner, can be a revolutionist only through a misunderstanding,” I heard one of the foremost among us say; and, in fact, he himself soon afterwards sent in a petition for pardon. Our worst fears were realised. Nine men in all followed the example of Vlastòpoulo; among the number Yemelyànov, who had held a bomb in readiness to throw at Alexander II., and Posen, whose monarchist infatuation I have already mentioned. Of course, all this had a most overwhelming and depressing effect upon us. The authorities always took care that anyone who had petitioned for pardon should at once be removed from our midst and interned outside the prison until orders arrived from Petersburg. Naturally we ourselves instantly broke off all relations with such a person, which often occasioned very affecting scenes. The action of sending in a petition of the kind we termed “asking to be sent to the colony”; and to this day the word “colonist” has a sinister sound in Siberia, bearing the implication of “renegade.”