The day was to bring yet another excitement. The head warder, a certain Pohorukov, made the rounds as usual, accompanied by some gendarmes, and called the roll in the various rooms. I was in the corridor, meaning to go into my room along with the gendarmes; and Fomitchov also was in the corridor, standing by the door of his room. As one of the gendarmes was unlocking that door I suddenly saw something hurtle through the air, the sound of a frightful blow followed, and the head warder fell to the ground. The gendarmes instantly fled in panic, leaving the man lying unconscious on the floor; but I ran after them, calling to them not to be frightened, that they must come and help their injured companion. It was, however, some time before they could be persuaded to return. I ought to mention here that Golubtsòv, the clever and tactful captain of the guard, of whom I spoke before, no longer held that post. When our hunger-strikes began he got himself transferred to the section for ordinary criminals, for he saw that the dispute with Masyukov was certain to cause trouble. The new captain of the guard was a stupid, cowardly fellow. When he at last recovered from his fright I managed to induce him to unlock the door of the room where Prybylyev, our physician, was, and the latter then had the wounded man carried into our “hospital” room, where he administered first aid. The head warder had received a severe blow on the head from some hard object, he was still unconscious, and it was difficult to know at first whether the wound was dangerous or not. As the commandant was away in attendance on the Governor-General and would not return till next day, and as the head warder was _hors de combat_, we prisoners had to take command, the gendarmes, who had quite lost their heads, obeying our orders without hesitation. The first thing was to get the injured man conveyed to his own house, and Prybylyev had him carried thither on the bed as he was. Then something must be done with Fomitchov, who himself insisted on being removed from among us; so we made the captain of the guard install him in one of the single cells in the adjacent building. Fomitchov’s act seemed absolutely inexplicable, the head warder being a quite insignificant, ordinary kind of person, about whom we had never troubled ourselves; and the only explanation that suggested itself to us was that, excited by the news we had just heard, Fomitchov must have suddenly lost his reason. For, being, as I have related, an eccentric devoted to monarchism, Fomitchov was the last person from whom such an attack on an official could have been expected, and the theory of madness seemed the more likely, as he had on one or two former occasions shown a tendency to paroxysms of rage. We were mistaken, however; next day he himself gave us the following elucidation of his motives.