“I was in prison three months, as near as I can tell,” replied Peter. “Three months of hell on earth and in darkness, forgotten to the world! It might have been three years, or three hundred, measured in my suffering—the terrible sounds by day and by night, the rats—and I might have been there till now, or dead, so far as Kirsakoff cared.” His bitterness was growing, and his face was getting livid with rage. “And for nothing?” asked Katerin. “Had you done nothing against the Governor—or the laws of the Czar?” “Ay, even Kirsakoff would have mercy on a boy,” said Michael. “I did nothing, I swear,” went on Peter. “It was the orders of Kirsakoff which sent me to prison. It was this way—an officer knocked me down in front of the post-house. And when my father came to pick me up, the Governor ordered both of us taken away to the prison. “You see, my father belonged to the free gang—he was a political, as were you. My mother died here, in the Street of the Dames. I never knew her. But my father was good and kind to me. He was all I had in the world, he was all I loved, though in those days (and Peter smiled wistfully) I was taught to love the Little Father, the Czar. “My father was struck down before my eyes, and when I was taken to the prison, the officer in charge of the books was drunk—and he put my name down in the book wrong—put my name down as my father’s—gave my father’s name to me, so that the records appeared to show that it was my father and not me, the boy, back in prison. I did not know what they were doing, and for three months it was supposed that it was my father, the political, who was in the cell by order of the Governor.” “Then no doubt the Governor freed you—gave you the pardon,” said Michael. “No,” said Peter. “It was God’s hand that set me free. Some convicts escaped one night, and were recaptured by the cordons in the _taiga_. But before the soldiers took them, they had waylaid a sledge carrying an American fur-buyer to Irkutsk. His name was Gordon. The convicts robbed him. When Gordon got back here to Chita, he was taken to the prison and the convicts were brought out to be identified by him as the robbers. It happened that one of these men, named Grassi, had been put in the cell with me. When he was taken out into the prison yard, I was taken with him. Then it was discovered that I was the son of my father, and that there was no charge against me. Mr. Gordon, the American, asked to take me as his servant. I was released, the prison commandant corrected the records, and Mr. Gordon took me with him to America.” Peter paused, and looked at Michael, to see what effect the story had had on the old man. But Michael’s head was nodding gently, and he seemed to be turning the matter over in his mind, his lips moving as if he were shaping words which he did not speak aloud.