Once alone in my cell, I began preparations for my journey. These were not so simple as might be supposed. Notwithstanding the excessive care with which everything sent me by my friends was inspected, I had become possessed of an English file for cutting through iron gratings, a pair of scissors to cut my hair and beard in case of need, and also money in German and Russian banknotes. I had to dispose of these things somehow. The file I decided to part with, as it was now hardly likely to be of any use, and would be hard to conceal; so I broke it in two and threw it down the waste-pipe of the closet. The other things I managed to secrete in such a manner that I should be able to avail myself of them if I had occasion on the journey. The warder at the cell-door never let me out of his sight; yet I managed to hide them in my clothes so that there was a chance of their escaping the searchers. All this was like the drowning man’s clutch at a straw. I did not deceive myself as to the strict watch to which I should be subjected, and the futility of any hope of speedy rescue. But in such circumstances even useless precautions serve at least to distract one’s thoughts, and my thoughts were not of the pleasantest. I knew what was before me, and pictured my future. Long, long years of prison! It was almost more bearable to think of death than of that living grave. “Of what use would my life be?” I asked myself; and the answer was devoid of consolation. CHAPTER V THE JOURNEY TO RUSSIA—IN THE CATTLE-TRUCK—THE FRANKFORT AND BERLIN PRISONS—THE FRONTIER-STATION—THROUGH WARSAW TO PETERSBURG When evening came I was sent off in a closed carriage, accompanied by two policemen in plain clothes, who had been enjoined to use all possible vigilance. The carriage was stopped at a branch of the railway line some distance from the station, and here my companions and I were put into an ordinary cattle-truck. As this truck was brought into the station, where it was attached to a passenger train, I observed an unusual commotion on the platform, and my guards, who noticed it too, whispered together excitedly. From chance words that I caught I gathered that an arrest was being made, and wondered if it could have anything to do with me. Years afterwards I learned that it was indeed two of my comrades who were seized on the platform at Freiburg, they having hoped to travel by my train and be at hand to assist me if I could attempt an escape. But this was another fiasco. My two friends were kept some days in prison in Freiburg, and then sent back to Switzerland.