If death was intended, it was usual to bribe the
executioner to aim the blows at the poor man's
side, so as to kill him as soon as possible."

"You are very frank, professor. Are these
not rather damaging flaws in your judicial
system?"

"We no more use the knout, mon cher
monsieur, as I told you; and, besides, a certain
rascally Pole, who escaped nearly twenty years
ago from Siberia, has disclosed all these things
as they were under the last Czar. Other abuses
will all go in time as the knout has gone. But
as you are curious about these things, I will describe
you another punishment, almost, if not
quite, abolished. It is the Skvoz-Stivi; what
the French call Les Baguettes (running the
gauntlet). It was reserved chiefly for soldiers,
but I have seen a woman punished by it in the
open streets, and the worst of the Poles had also
to endure it: as they sow so they must reap.
They drew up two ranks of soldiers, arming each
with a switch previously soaked for some days to
make it supple. The condemned man is then
stripped to the waist, his hands tied to a musket,
and led through the ranks by a rope tied to the
musket. As he passes, each soldier steps forward
and strikes him on the back or neck. When he
faints, he is lifted up and dragged on. The number
of blows was limited by our Peter the Great
to twelve thousand; but, unless it is intended
to kill the man, they seldom inflict more than
two thousand at a time. He is then carried to
the hospital, and stays there till the doctor pronounces
him able to start on his long and painful
walk to Siberia."

I started at the very name of Siberia.

"By-the-by," said the professor, "as you
take such an interest in our still somewhat imperfect
administration of justice, and also in
this terrible Polish question, which you Englishmen
either cannot or will not understand, I will
take you on Sunday morning to see the weekly
caravan of prisoners start from our great state
prison in the suburbs. It starts every Sunday
morning at eight o'clock, and there are sure to
be fifty or sixty Poles among them. We need
ask no permission— we need pay no bribe; the
prisoners assemble half an hour before the time
outside the chief gate, and all we have to do is
to drive there in a droschky, mingle with the
crowd, and, if we choose, follow the poor fellows
for half a mile or so. What is to-day?"

"Friday."

"Very well, Sunday morning, at seven, I shall
be at the hotel door in a carriage and ready for
you. Now I must wish you good night— no
thanks— for I have work to prepare for my class
to-morrow."

The Russians, naturally pliant, subtle, and
diplomatic, affect this blunt manner with Englishmen,
and it becomes them very well. I
thanked the professor briefly, but warmly, and
he left me to a Russian nightmare, composed of
birch forests, rampant bears, Siberian exiles,
blows of the knout, of all the czars, sturgeon,
icebergs, and armies of Poles, armed with flashing
scythes.

The next night I slept in the way a man does
who goes to bed knowing he has an early appointment
— a sense of an alarum about to run
down. A shout awoke me— no, it was a church
bell. What do I say, a church bell?— ten
thousand brazen bells, going all at once. It
was Sunday morning in the Holy City. Yes,
it was a shout: there was Professor Bibikoff
calling to me from the street. I opened the
window and replied. In ten minutes I was with
him. It was a fresh, bright October morning
that I leaped into the droschky, in which Professor
Bibikoff was already seated, and shook
him by the hand.

"Pashol," he cried to the driver, "quick to
the gate of the great prison on the Peteroffsky
road; scorrei."

I was anxious to observe for myself the faces
of the unhappy exiles, and the behaviour of the
government officials. I knew it would be my
last opportunity. Unconsciously to myself I
was very excited at the thought of a scene so
new and so full of associations of fear and terror,
but I did not tell the professor so.

As our primitive carriage jolted and bounced
along the badly-paved streets, the good-natured
and bland professor harangued me on the good
deeds and reforms of the present emperor. The
professor, in his official tail-coat dotted with
official gilt buttons, had a soft, low, persuasive
voice, and rubbed his thin white hands as he
eulogised his royal master.

We drove fast along the Boulevards, the
broad yellow leaves rustling on our heads. The
sky was pure as a sapphire.

A thin glaze of ice was filming the water in
the fountains. The only men we met wore
cloaks, whose collars were two feet deep in fur.

"See, winter is beginning," said the professor,
thoughtfully. "We have enough of it by the
time the snows melt in April, I can tell you."

"It must be cruel walking in winter for these
poor prisoners?"

"No," said Bibikoff, in his quiet, diplomatic,
apologetic voice. "They specially pray to go
in winter. The chains are so heavy, that the
summer heat distresses them more than the
winter cold. Hurry coachman, hurry, or you
get no tea-money."

By this time we had got clear of the side-streets
leading from the long rambling Boulevard
that girdles the straggling city of Moscow.
We had passed the long ranks of small trees,
and the cold-looking garden-seats.

A great archway of painted board and canvas
stared at us on the left-hand side of the road. It
was the entrance to the Hermitage, the Cremorne
of Moscow, and, like Cremorne, the
quondam estate of a nobleman. It had been just
shut up for the winter, and looked tawdry and
mournful: melancholy as a starving strolling
player.

We had now reached that region of bare
grass-patch, poor cottage and market-garden,
that surrounds all cities. The road grew looser
and more out of repair. The flimsy hack-carriage
rolled and tumbled as if it was at sea. Then