Chapter III: The Gold Mines of Kara

In the background a murky, leaden colored sky. Outlined against it, ranges of low hills scantily clad with stunted larches and pines and whitened by a light fall of snow. At their base a stream, narrow and rapid, brawling between scattered rocks and huge shapeless mounds of gravel and sand. In the foreground a straggling village of whitewashed cabins and long barracks of unpainted logs, with a few more pretentious houses with tin roofs, and a black, weather beaten log prison, in the open space before which stand a group of Cossacks in sheepskin boots and dark green uniforms, leaning moodily upon their Berdan rifles.

Such was the scene on a dreary January morning in that portion of the Siberian gold mine settlements known as Middle Kara.

Within the gloomy prison the convicts have answered to the morning roll call, and are now taking their breakfast of weak tea and rye bread. A moment later the heavy doors are thrown open and the mournful procession files out, a haggard, toil worn group of men, wearing long gray overcoats with yellow diamonds on their backs. The Cossacks shoulder their rifles, surround the convicts front and rear, and at the sharp word of command from the officer in charge, the column is moving briskly up the dreary valley to begin another day’s relentless toil.

A sad and hopeless place is this valley of the Kara River, lined at intervals, for a distance of nearly twenty miles, by the prisons and settlements that constitute the Czar’s convict mines. The mines themselves consist of a series of open placers, stretching at irregular intervals along the Kara River—a river in name only. From these placers the convicts extract yearly, by the sweat of their brow, about 3,600 pounds of pure gold—all of which goes into the Czar’s private purse. The misery and suffering of the unfortunate beings who are condemned to spend their days here in hard labor, is not unknown to the civilized world. It need not be dwelt upon further.

Among the group of convicts who marched up the valley in the gray wintry light of this particular morning was one whose figure had not lost its straightness, nor his face its look of conscious pride, in spite of the wretchedness he had endured for two long years. But his features were haunted, nevertheless, by an expression of suffering that might have defied recognition from any who knew Victor Sandoff in the days when he was the famous Inspector of the terrible Third Section. Two years had come and gone since his arrest and conviction—one year of monotonous journeying across Siberia, and one year of toil, day by day, in the gold placers of the Kara River. He had nothing to look forward to but a long vista of slavery—terminated, perhaps, by an unmarked grave among the Siberian hills, or at the best by a return to Russia in poverty, disgrace and degradation, to spend the remainder of his life shunned by all men. Strange irony of fate, that this man whose signature had sent many a poor wretch to Siberia, should come at last to the same place! Many of those by whose side he worked from day to day owed their arrest and conviction to him, but none knew him, nor did he know them. The gray convict garb makes its wearer only an indistinguished unit in the army of slaves.

His thoughts—and terrible they must have been at times—Victor Sandoff kept well beneath the surface. His face was always grave, impassive, set in that rigid expression which sometimes awed his companions, and impressed even the rude Cossacks.

On this morning his keen blue eyes had a far away look as he plodded over the frozen clods of snow, for it was two years to a day since the fateful 10th of January that had witnessed such a change in his life, and he could not help recalling the series of events that had wrought his undoing—the visit of Zamosc and Poussin, the interview with Vera Shamarin, and the abrupt entry of the gendarmes into his room with the terrible order of arrest.

Thus absorbed he failed to note his surroundings—the squads of mounted Cossacks who galloped by or were seen at a distance, winding over some barren hill top, the eager mutterings of his companions, and the excited interest of the guards who had the convicts in charge.

At sunrise that morning, while he was yet lying on his hard bed, half awake, half asleep, he had heard the dull boom of a cannon echoing through the valley, and now when a second report thundered among the hills, he glanced up, curious to know what it meant.

A brief exchange of words between the Cossack officer and one of his men—who were marching close by—gave him the wished for information.

“There goes another gun,” said the latter. “The fugitive must be still at large.”

“They will soon capture her,” returned the other, with a harsh laugh. “It is seldom that a man gets five miles away from the valley—what can a woman hope to do?”

A woman, then, had escaped! Sandoff was conscious of a vague hope that the poor creature might elude her pursuers—a hope that he knew could never be realized. It was a frequent thing for convicts to break away from the mines, but they either perished from cold and hunger or were ultimately brought back to endure aggravated miseries in expiation of their offense. The knowledge of this deterred many who could easily have accomplished a temporary escape. What would have been the use? It was five thousand miles to St. Petersburg, and a good thousand to the Pacific coast. Every foot of the way was beset by incredible perils.

The scene of the day’s toil was reached after a march of an hour—for it lay three miles from the settlement. Without delay the men were put to work under the keen eye of the overseer, while the Cossacks stacked their rifles and built fires, about which they gathered, stamping their feet and clapping their arms together, for the weather was bitterly cold and the snow was beginning to fall thickly from the leaden sky.

With pick and shovel the convicts delved into the stratum of clay and gravel beneath which lies the bed of gold bearing sand—sometimes at a depth of twenty feet. The frozen clods of earth were taken in charge by others, who loaded them on rude wheelbarrows and trundled them away. At a spot some little distance down the stream, a bed of sand, uncovered on the previous day, was being washed out in the wooden hoppers.

The biting cold compelled the men to work with more than their usual energy, and all were hungry when the time for the scanty noonday lunch arrived. They drew as close to the fires as the Cossacks would permit, and ate their bread and drank their weak tea, sitting on the snowy ground.

Sandoff found himself opposite a man who interested him strangely—a tall, slender fellow of about his own age, with dark hair, piercing black eyes, and an expression that was moody and even desperate, as though the burning remembrance of his wrongs was always taunting him.

Two nights before this man had been placed in the prison cell occupied by Sandoff and two others, having been transferred to Middle Kara from one of the lower settlements. He had maintained a dogged silence ever since, and Sandoff had more than once found the stranger’s eyes fixed upon him with a strange earnestness of gaze.

The man ate the last morsel of his bread and washed it down with his tea, glancing casually at Sandoff as he did so. Suddenly his face flushed and a tigerish look came into his eyes—a look of hatred and recognition. The Cossacks were some distance away, and before they could note what was going on, much less take any action, the fellow sprang to his feet and hurled himself on Sandoff, clutching his throat in a vicious grip.

“I know you, I know you,” he cried in passionate accents. “I can’t be mistaken. You are Inspector Sandoff. It was you, you traitorous dog, who deceived my sister and decoyed me from my hiding place!”

In an instant all was wild excitement. The convicts gathered eagerly about the scene of the struggle, but were speedily thrown aside by the guards, who tore the combatants roughly apart, the one senseless with rage, the other stunned and bewildered.

“Who are you?” demanded Sandoff in a troubled voice.

“You should easily guess,” replied the other bitterly; “but I will tell you my name. I am Felix Shamarin.”

A strange look came into Sandoff’s eyes, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“You do well to attack me,” he said. “Could not your own eyes have told you the truth? What, think you, brought me here? It was the passport I gave your sister on that night two years ago. I am suffering for her sake, and for yours. Did you know nothing of it?”

Shamarin drew a short, fierce breath. His face changed color, and a tear forced itself into each eye.

“As God is my witness,” he said with emotion, “I did not know of this thing. I thought it was you who betrayed us—your perfidy that decoyed us to the railway station. And so the fulfillment of your oath to Vera proved your ruin! I wish to God she had never gone near you on that night. It were better for me to have been caught and to have suffered alone. Can you ever forgive me?—I must seem to you the basest, the most ungrateful of men. My sudden passion when I recognized you destroyed my reason, else I must have suspected the truth.”

“It was but natural,” replied Sandoff gently. “Say no more.”

He leaned forward and took the hand that Shamarin extended to him. For a moment the two men were united by a common bond of misery, despite the great gulf that had separated their lives in former days.

The Cossacks had paid no attention to this brief conversation, but just at that moment their officer, Lieutenant Zagarin, pushed his way to the spot with a flushed and angry face.

The cause of the quarrel mattered not to him, nor did he make any distinction between the offenders, though it was perfectly plain that Shamarin had been the aggressor.

“You mutinous dogs!” he cried harshly. “You deserve to be shot. I will be lenient this time—but beware in future. Chain these men to their barrows,” he added, turning to the Cossacks, “and put them to work in that spot yonder, where the soil is so hard. See that they get no supper when they return tonight—or on the following night either.”

Remonstrance or explanation would have been worse than useless. The officer’s command was speedily obeyed, and in a short time Sandoff and Shamarin were working by themselves in a small hollow on the western side of the river, opposite their companions. A single Cossack was detailed to guard them.

The stratum of gravel was unusually hard at this point, and they found the labor very severe as they dug out the clods with their picks and conveyed them to the water’s edge in the wheelbarrows. The watchful eye of the Cossack was upon them, and conversation was out of the question.

The hollow in which they were working was square in shape, bounded on one side by the river, and on the other three sides by a bluff about fifteen feet high, the top of which was covered with dense, scrubby bushes. Being a little way down stream this hollow was beyond the scrutiny of the Cossacks or of the labor gang, and the two toilers were in range of only one pair of eyes, the property of the solitary Cossack.

This individual was disposed to regard his position as somewhat of a sinecure. He had no fear that his captives would run away, for they were securely chained to their wheelbarrows. Nor did he imagine that they would quarrel, for with his own eyes he had seen the reconciliation between them. His duty was to keep them at work, and as this did not require his presence on the exact spot he varied the monotony of his employment by marching up and down that portion of the river shore which commanded a view of the hollow, and by gazing fiercely at Sandoff or Shamarin when they approached with a load of clods. The snow was now an inch thick on the ground, and as the afternoon waned it came down still more persistently, blowing to and fro in blinding flurries.

The men could have conversed with safety, since the Cossack was beyond earshot, but neither felt in the mood for speech. The cold was so intense that their only refuge from it was in hard and incessant work. They had just returned from wheeling a load of clods to the river, and as they drove their picks into the hole they had excavated a ringing sound came to their ears. Glancing around, they saw the Cossack place his rifle against a rock and bend down toward the water, tin cup in hand, with the evident intention of procuring a drink.

That instant a stone, thrown from above, struck Shamarin smartly on the arm. His sudden exclamation startled Sandoff, and both glanced up to see a face peering dimly over the edge of the bluff between the parted bushes.

“Be cautious,” whispered a feminine voice of singular sweetness. “Keep your heads down and pretend to be working, but don’t lose a word I say.”

Shamarin staggered and nearly dropped his pick.

“My God!” he muttered hoarsely, “it is Vera—my sister!”

“Yes, it is I, Vera,” came the reply from above. “Is your companion to be trusted? Quick!”

Shamarin instantly regained his self possession.

“Yes, he is all right,” he replied. “Go on. I am listening.”

The Cossack was still bending over the water. It took him a long time to find a suitable drinking place.

“Here, take this,” said the girl. She threw down a short thin package, which Shamarin deftly caught and hid in his bosom.

“You heard the cannon this morning?” she continued quickly. “They were for me. I escaped last night from the women’s prison at Ust Kara. I will explain all later. I have been watching here all day. Tonight you must escape. Remove a board from the floor of your cell—that packet contains tools which will help you. Come directly to this spot. I have plans which I will explain then. Don’t be alarmed about me. I am warmly clothed, and have a safe hiding place.”

“If possible we shall be there,” replied Shamarin. “I think your plan will work—but if anything happens and we don’t come, give yourself up. I have a strange thing to tell you. This man here, my companion, is——”

“Hush! hush! the Cossack is returning. Good by—until tonight.”

Vera quickly withdrew her head and Sandoff and Shamarin plied their picks with trembling hands and agitated faces, as the Cossack came quickly forward, shouldering his rifle. He had evidently received some signal from his companions, for as he reached the spot he said gruffly: “The lieutenant has ordered a return. The snow is becoming too deep to do good work.”

He conducted his temporary prisoners out of the hollow, and across the shallow stream on the scattered stones. A few moments later the convict gang was marching back to the settlement. At least two of their number bore lighter hearts than had been theirs when they started from their cells that morning.