The truth was such a shock to him that it threw him into convulsions. He struck me with something and felled me to the floor. His face turned chalk-white, the veins stood out on his temples, and he was trembling all over. He seemed utterly prostrated by the horror of this nightmare. The Governor’s liberality was now explained. The five hundred roubles, the commutation of his sentence, it had all been dearly paid for by his beloved. My attempted suicide now appeared to him in its true light. He would take vengeance. He would kill the Governor, he swore, yes, he would murder that most despicable of villains. I hugged his feet and begged him not to attempt to carry out his threat. He paid no heed to my prayers, and talked of the hollowness of his life if he did not avenge me. He set off on his fateful errand, all my efforts to bar his way having failed. When he appeared at the Governor’s office and requested an audience, giving his name, the clerks immediately suspected him of some sinister design. The secretary reported to the Governor that Buk, the butcher, desired an audience, but that his manner roused suspicion. The Governor ordered that he should be detained and searched. A long, sharp knife was found on him, and he was arrested, orders being given for his exile on the following day to Amga, a hamlet about one hundred and thirty miles from Yakutsk. I had only twenty-four hours to dispose of the shop, and was compelled to hand it over to a local political, with the understanding that he would pay us for it a few months later. It was Easter Eve, 1914, when we started out in a cart, driven by a Yakut, for Amga. The mud was the worst I have ever come across. The horses sank so deep, and the wheels of the vehicle stuck so often, that frequently we had to alight and help in extricating them. We spent Easter Day in a native’s hut on the road, in which children, women and animals lived together. There is always a fire in the centre of these huts, the smoke being allowed to escape through a hole in the roof. The cows were milked in the hut, and the filth was beyond words. After supping on some bread and a sort of tea, which was unfit for human consumption, we went to sleep. The following day we resumed our journey to Amga. CHAPTER V ESCAPE FROM EXILE We spent about six days on the road to Amga. It was a town with a mixed population. Half of its homes were tiny cabins, built by Russian exiles, many of whom had married Yakut women, as the latter were physically attractive and were proud to be the wives of white men. The natives ill-treated their wives, and were lazy, so that the women usually laboured to support their families. Some of the Yakuts were very wealthy, owning as many as a thousand head of deer and cattle. Men, women and children alike dressed only in fur. They made their bread of a coarse flour, ground by hand.