The deliberation of the court was very short, and the sentence was of course in accordance with the Public Prosecutor’s demand—thirteen years and four months’ penal servitude. I was then escorted back to prison; and although I had always expected this sentence, I felt in a certain sense relieved as if a weight had fallen from my shoulders. Everything was now settled once for all. Uncertainty, as I have said, is a prisoner’s hardest trial; and I had only now to wonder whither I should be sent. As I had been tried as an ordinary criminal, I might be despatched to Kara, in Siberia, where were old friends and acquaintances of mine, and where the prison life was comparatively bearable. Or they could send me to the island of Saghalien, where—as all Russia knows—the conditions are horrible. But what frightened me most of all was the thought that the Government (who by having to stick more or less to the extradition treaty had been prevented from sentencing me to such a severe punishment as they would have liked) might still find some excuse for aggravating my penalty, and send me to be buried alive in the Schlüsselburg fortress. The building of that prison had just been finished, and everyone was saying that as it was intended for the most dangerous of the “politicals,” a murderously cruel régime was to be enforced there. A week after the trial the president of the court-martial came to inform me officially of the sentence. I was taken into the office, where General Grodèkov had entrenched himself behind a wide table, so that he was well separated from me; but even so he commanded the sentries to stand between us with fixed bayonets, and seemed terribly apprehensive of what I might do to him. I was much amused, and my guards were very contemptuous, as I gathered from their subsequent comments while I was being taken back to my cell. Indeed, I have never seen any civilian take so many precautions when speaking with a convict as this seasoned warrior thought necessary. Although the proceedings against me were concluded, I still had to undergo further examinations, but in the character of a witness. First there appeared one day a captain of gendarmerie, accompanied by the Public Prosecutor. He addressed the following question to me:— “A letter was found in your cell at Freiburg; it contained an address. You were to arrange for the despatch of books from this address. Can you tell me what the books were, and who was the writer of the letter? And remember,” he continued, “that through our possession of this address a number of persons in Vilna have been arrested. If you will tell us who was the actual writer, the others will be set at liberty.” I knew this trick well enough, and replied calmly— “You seem to think it not dishonourable to reveal the names of one’s correspondents. I cannot agree with you.” The young man looked embarrassed, and hastily brought our interview to an end.