Condemned as a Nihilist Part 23

"Pick out two suits, Luka, one for you and one for me." Luka was making a careful choice when G.o.dfrey said, "Don't pick out the best, Luka, I don't want Sunday clothes, but just strong serviceable suits; they will be none the worse for a patch or two. Now," he said to the men, "name a fair price for those clothes and I will pay you."

The peasants had not in the slightest degree believed that the convicts were going to pay them, and their faces lighted up. They hesitated as to the price.

"Come, I will give you ten roubles. I am sure that is more than they are worth to you now."

"Very well," the man said, "I am contented."

G.o.dfrey placed a ten-rouble note upon the table. "Now," he said, "we want a couple of hats." Two fairly good ones were brought down.

"Is there nothing else?" the man asked, ready enough to sell now that he saw that he was to be paid fair prices.

"We want some meat and bread, ten pounds of each if you have got it."

"We have a pig we salted down the other day," the man said. "We have no bread--we are going to bake to-morrow morning but you can have ten pounds of flour."

"That will do. We want a small frying-pan, a kettle, and two tin mugs.

Have you got any tea in the house?"

"I have got about a pound."

"We will take it all. We can't bother ourselves about sugar, Luka, we must do without that; every pound tells. We have brought plenty of tobacco with us to last some time. Have you got a gun?" he asked the man suddenly.

"Yes," he said, "we have got two. The wolves are troublesome sometimes in winter. Fetch the guns, Elizabeth."

The guns were brought down. One was a double-barrel of German make, the other a long single-barrel. "How much do you want for this?" he asked, taking up the former.

"I don't use it much," the man said, "one will be enough for me, I will take fifty roubles."

"No, no," G.o.dfrey said. "You value your goods too high; money is not as plentiful with me as all that. I can't go higher than twenty roubles,"

and he laid the gun down again.

"I will take thirty," the man said.

After a good deal of bargaining G.o.dfrey obtained the gun, a flask of powder, and a bag of bullets and shot for twenty-five roubles. Then he paid for the other goods he had purchased. Luka made them into a bundle and lifted them all on to his shoulder. Then saying good-bye to the peasants they again started for the forest.

"We are set up now, Luka."

"Yes indeed," the Tartar replied. "We could journey anywhere now; we want but two or three blankets and some furs and we could travel to Moscow."

"Yes, if we had one more thing, Luka."

"What is that?"

"Pa.s.sports."

"Yes, we should want those; but I daresay we could do without them."

They enjoyed their suppers greatly that night, frying some pork and then some dough-cakes in the fat, and washing it down with numerous cups of tea.

"The next thing will be for you to make a bow and arrows, Luka. I did not buy the other gun for two reasons: in the first place because we could not afford it, and in the second because you said you liked a bow best."

Luka nodded. "I never shot with a gun," he said. "A bow is just as good, and makes no noise."

"That is true enough, Luka. Well, I shall be a good deal more comfortable when we leave those convict clothes behind us. Of course we shall be just as liable to be seized and shut up as vagabonds when we cannot produce papers as if we were in our convict suits, but there is something disgusting in being dressed up in clothing that tells every one you are a murderer or a robber, and to know there is that patch between one's shoulders."

Luka was quite indifferent to any sentimental considerations. Still he admitted that it was an advantage to get rid of the convict garb. In the morning they put on the peasants' clothes. As G.o.dfrey was about the same size as the man whose garments he had got, the things fitted him fairly.

Luka's were a good deal too large for him, but as the Russian peasants'

clothes always fit them loosely, this mattered little. The other things were divided into two bundles of equal weight.

Luka would willingly have carried the whole, pointing out that G.o.dfrey had the gun and ammunition, but the latter said:

"If you take the frying-pan and kettle and the two tin mugs that will make matters even, Luka."

The two convict suits were left at the foot of the tree where they had slept. G.o.dfrey first thought of throwing them on to the fire, but changed his mind, saying:

"Some poor beggar whose clothes are worn out may come upon them, and be glad of them, some time during the summer; we may just as well let them lie here. Now, Luka, we must walk in good earnest. We ought to be able to make five-and-thirty miles a day over a tolerably level country, and at that rate we shall be a long way off before winter."

The forests abounded with squirrels. Although Luka a.s.sured him that they were excellent eating, G.o.dfrey could not bring himself to shoot at the pretty creatures. "It would be a waste of powder and shot, Luka," he said. "We have plenty of meat to go on with at present, when it is gone it will be time enough to begin to think of shooting game; besides, there are numbers of mines about this country, and the sound of a gun might bring out the Cossacks."

CHAPTER XI.

AFLOAT.

It was a pleasant journey through the forest, with its thick and varied foliage, that afforded a shade from the sun's rays, with patches of open ground here and there bright with flowers. G.o.dfrey had enjoyed it at first, but he enjoyed it still more after he had got rid of the convict badge. He had now no fear of meeting anyone in the woods except charcoal-burners or woodmen, or escaped convicts like themselves. By such they would not be suspected of being aught but what they seemed--two peasants; unless indeed, a hat should fall off. The first night after leaving the prison G.o.dfrey had done his best to obliterate the convict brand, by singeing it off as he had done before.

Each day the air grew warmer, and they could pick as they walked any quant.i.ty of raspberries and whortleberries. Luka always filled the kettle at each streamlet they came to, as they could never tell how long they would be before they arrived at another, and the supply rendered them independent, and enabled them to camp whenever they took a fancy to a spot. They walked steadily from sunrise to sunset, and as they went at a good pace G.o.dfrey was sure that they were doing fully the thirty-five miles a day he had calculated on. Although Sundays had not been observed at the prison, and the work went on those days as on others, G.o.dfrey had not lost count, and knew that it was on a Monday evening that they had broken out, and each Sunday was used as a day of rest.

"We are travelling at a good pace, Luka," he said, "and thirty-five miles a day six days a week is quite enough, so on Sundays we will always choose a good camping ground by a stream, wash our clothes, and rest."

They had little trouble about provisions. At lonely houses they could always obtain them, and there they were received very hospitably, the peasants often refusing absolutely to accept money, or at any rate giving freely of all the articles they themselves raised, and taking pay only for tea and sugar, which they themselves had to purchase. When no such places could be met with they went down to villages at night, and never failed to find bread and cakes on the window-sills, though it was not often that meat was there, for the peasants themselves obtained it but seldom. G.o.dfrey had no fear of his money running short for a long time. The six hundred roubles with which he arrived at Kara had been increased by his earnings during the nine months he had been there. He had spent but a few kopecks a week for tea and tobacco, and his pay while he had been a clerk was a good deal larger than while he had been working in the mine. Luka, too, had saved every kopeck he had received from the day when G.o.dfrey told him that he would take him with him when he ran away. He had even given up smoking, and was with difficulty persuaded by G.o.dfrey to take some tobacco occasionally from him. Between them in the nine months they had laid by nearly a hundred roubles, and had, therefore, after deducting the money given by G.o.dfrey to Mikail and that paid for the gun and clothes, over five hundred roubles for their journey.

They were glad, indeed, when at last they saw the broad sheet of Lake Baikal. They had for some time been bearing to the north of west, and struck the lake some twenty miles from its head. There were a good many small settlements round the lake, a good deal of fishing being carried on upon it, although the work was dangerous, for terrible storms frequently swept down from the northern mountains and sent the boats flying into port. The lake is one of the deepest in the world, soundings in many places being over five thousand feet. Many rivers run into the lake, the only outflow being by the Angara. Baikal is peculiar as being the only fresh-water lake in the world where seals are found, about two thousand being killed annually. The sh.o.r.es are in most places extremely steep, precipices rising a thousand feet sheer up from the edge of the water, with soundings of a hundred and fifty fathoms a few yards from their feet. Fish abound in the lake, and sturgeon of large size are captured there.

G.o.dfrey knew that there were guard-houses with Cossacks on the road between the northern point of water and the steep mountains that rise almost directly from it. He had specially studied the geography of this region, and knew that after pa.s.sing round the head of the lake there was a track across the hills by which they would, after travelling a hundred and fifty miles, strike the main road from Irkutsk to Yakutsk, near the town of Kirensk, on the river Lena. From Kirensk it would be but little more than a hundred miles to the nearest point on the Angara, which is one of the princ.i.p.al branches of the Yenesei.

To gain this river would be a great point. The Lena, which was even nearer to the head of Lake Baikal, also flowed into the Arctic Sea; but its course was almost due north, and it would be absolutely hopeless to endeavour to traverse the whole of the north coast of Siberia. The Angara and the Yenesei, on the other hand, flowed north-west, and fell into the Arctic Sea near the western boundary of Siberia, and when they reached that point they would be but a short distance from Russia. It seemed to him that the only chance was by keeping by a river. In the great ranges of mountains in the north of Siberia there would be no means of obtaining food, and to cross such a district would be certain death. By the rivers, on the other hand, there would at least be no fear of losing their way. The journey could be shortened by using a canoe if they could obtain one, and if not, a raft. They would often find little native villages or huts by the banks, and would be able to obtain fish from them. Besides, they could themselves catch fish, and might possibly even winter in some native village. For all these reasons he had determined on making for the Angara.

Buying a stock of dried fish at a little fishing village on the lake they walked to within a mile of its head, there they slept for the night, and started an hour before daybreak, pa.s.sed the Cossack guard-house unseen just as the daylight was stealing over the sky, and then went along merrily.

The road was not much used, the great stream of traffic pa.s.sing across Lake Baikal, but was in fair condition, and they made good progress along it. Long before that, Luka had, after several attempts, made a bow to his satisfaction. It was formed of three or four strips of tough wood firmly bound together with waxed twine, they having procured the string and the wax at a farmhouse on the way. There was one advantage in taking this unfrequented route. The road between Irkutsk and Tomsk was, as G.o.dfrey had learned on his outward journey, frequented by bands of brigands who had no hesitation in killing as well as plundering wayfarers. Here they were only likely to fall in with convicts who had escaped from Irkutsk or from convoys along the road, and were for the most part perfectly harmless, seeking only to spend a summer holiday in freedom, and knowing that when winter came on they would have to surrender themselves.

Of such men G.o.dfrey had no fear, his gun and his companion's bow and arrows rendered them too formidable to be meddled with, and until they came down upon the main road there was no chance of their meeting police officers or Cossacks. No villages were pa.s.sed on the journey, and G.o.dfrey, therefore, had no longer any hesitation in shooting the squirrels that frisked about among the trees. He found them, as Luka had said, excellent eating, although it required three or four of them to furnish anything like a meal. He soon, however, gave over shooting, for he found that Luka was at least as certain with his bow as he was with the gun, with the advantage that the blunt arrow did not spoil the skins. These, as Luka told him, were valuable, and they would be able to exchange them for food, the Siberian squirrel furnishing a highly-prized fur.

Each day Luka brought down at least a dozen of these little creatures, and these, with their dried fish and cakes made of flour, afforded them excellent food on their way. After four days' walking across a lofty plateau they descended into a cultivated valley, and before them rose the cupolas of Kirensk, while along the valley flowed the Lena, as yet but a small river, although it would become a mighty flood before it reached the sea, nearly four thousand miles away. It would have to be crossed at Kirensk, and they sat down and held a long council as to how they had best get through the town. They agreed that it must be done at night, for in the daytime they certainly would have to produce pa.s.sports.