, 1889-07-16
A SECRET MEETING OF ExlLEs.
How the Patriots I'm Siberia Hold Coun-
sei-"we Have IA Graveyard"

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How the Patriots In Siberia Hold coun-
sel-"we Have IA Grayeyard."
One by one the political convicts of
b free command began 10 assemble
at Miss Armfeldt's house Every few
minutes a low signal knock would be
heard at one of the window shutters
and Miss Armfeldt would go cautious
ly to the door, inquire who was there.
and when satisfied that it was one of
her companions would take down the
bar and give him admission. The
small, dimly lighted cabin, the strain
ed hush Of anxiety and apprehension,
the soft, mysterious knocking at the
window shutters, the low but eager
conversation, and the group of pale
faced men and women who crowded
about me with intense, wondering in
terest as if | were a nan who had just
risen from the dead, made me feel like
one talking and acting in a strange,
vivid dream. There was not, in the
whole environment, a single sugges-
ton OF the real, commonplace, out
side world; and when the convicts,
with bated breath, began to tell me
CHASTITY stories of cruelty, suffering,
insanity and suicide at the mines, /
felt almost as if l had entered the
gloomy gate over which Dante saw
inscribed the dread warming, Leave
hope behind"
About 8 o'clock, just as l had taken
out my note book and began to write,
a loud, imperative knock was heard
at the side window shutter. Madam
Kolenkina exclaimed in a low, hoarse
whisper, Its the gendarmesl Don't
let them come in. Tell them who of
us are here, and perhaps they'll be
satisfied" Everybody was silent,
and it seemed to me that / could hear
my heart beat while Miss Armfeldt
went to- the door and with cool self
possession said to the gendarmes:
1--WE are all here; my mother, 1, Kur-
teyef, Madam Kolenkina and"- the
other names l could not catch. After
a moments parley the gendarmes
seemed to go away, Miss Armfeldt
shut and rebarred the door, and COM
ing back into the room said with a
smile, They were satisfied; they
didn't insist on coming in" Then,
turning to me, she added In English:
THE gendarmes visit us three times a
day TO see what we are doing and to
make sure that we have not escaped.
Their visits, however, have grown to
be formal, and they do not always
come in"
Conversation was then resumed,
and for two hours or more l listened
to stories of convict life in prison, on
the road, or at the mines, and an
swered as well as 1 could the eager
questions of the convicts with regard
to the progress of the Russian revolu-
tionary movement. In the course of the
talk my attention was ~accidently at
tracted to a person whom l had not
particularly noticed before and to
whom l had not been introduced. 1t
was a man 80 or 35 years of age, with
a colorless, strangely vacant face and
large, protruding blue eyes. He had
seated himself on a low wooden stool
directly in front of me, had rested his
elbows on his knees with his chin
at me with a steady and at the same
there seemed to be something un-
natural and uncanny. At the first
pause in the conversation he said to
me abruptly, but in a strange, drawl-
ing, monotonous tone, "We-have-
~a-graveyard Of our own-here.
l was so surprised and startled by
his manner and by the nature of his
question that l did not for a moment
reply; but the conviction suddenly
flashed upon me that it was a political
convict who had lost his reason. As
the knocking at the gate after the
murder i'll Macbeth seemed to De
Quincy to deepen the emotions ex-
cited by the tragedy and to reflect back
a sort of added horror upon all that
preceded it, SO this strange, unprompt-
ed question, with its suggestions of In
sanity and death, seemed TO render
more vivid and terrible the stories of
human suffering that had just heard,
and to intensity all the emotions rous-
ed in my mind by the great tragedy
of penal servitude.-George KEENAN,
in Century.