The Assize Court of St. Petersburg was crowded to suffocation, for a great trial of Nihilists was concluding. Paul Denissoff, as a preliminary to his punishment, had been kept in solitary confinement in one of the cells deep down under the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. Together with thirty other revolutionists, including those arrested in the Bolshaia Ssattovaia, he was now brought up for sentence. The rays of the afternoon sun were slanting across the court, lighting up the dais whereon sat the grave-looking judge, over whose head hung the golden double-headed eagle, surmounted by an _ikon_, or picture of the Virgin. Those in court were breathless, for sentence was about to be delivered. Presently the judge spoke. "Prisoners," he said, addressing the motley row of eager-faced men and women before him, "you have all been found guilty of conspiracy to cause the death of His Imperial Majesty the Tzar. There is but one sentence the _Swod_ allows me to pronounce, and it is that you shall be banished and kept at labour at the mines for the remainder of your lives." Above the sobs and wailing which came from the public portion of the court sounded a shrill, piercing, hysterical shriek. Paul, turning sharply, saw that a poorly-clad woman, sitting in the front row of the spectators, had fainted. Her clothes were common, her hair was parted in the middle and brushed back severely; but, notwithstanding the disguise, he recognised her. It was Adine Orlovski. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two years had gone by. Colonel Solovieff, promoted to the rank of general, had been appointed by the Tzar as Governor of the Asiatic Province of Trans-Baikal. In the whole of Siberia there is no region more desolate than around the Nerchinsk silver mines of Algachi and Pokrovski. Situated far away in Eastern Siberia, near the Mongolian frontier, and distant five thousand versts from St. Petersburg, there is not a tree or bush to be seen in any direction, and the rolling, snow-clad hills suggest in general contour the immense surges and mounds of water raised by a hurricane. The buildings at the entrance to the Pokrovski mine consist only of a tool-house, a shed for the accommodation of the Cossacks of the guard, and a few log-built cabins occupied by convicts allowed out on licence for good behaviour; while dotted here and there are sentry-boxes, before which stand Cossacks leaning on their rifles. It is impossible to imagine a more terrible and hopeless existence than that to which Paul Denissoff had been consigned, working all day in the damp, muddy galleries of the mine, and at night trudging through the snow back to the close, foul prison of Algachi. It was, indeed, worse than the life of any pariah dog, for, recognising the hopelessness of the situation, he had given way to that inertness begotten of despair.