Read Ebook: The Boy Nihilist or Young America in Russia by Arnold Allan

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Ebook has 935 lines and 25295 words, and 19 pages

r was now a prisoner.

"Prince Mastowix," said the president of the tribunal, "it ill becomes a traitor to the State to exhibit such arrogance."

"Who dare say I am a traitor--who dare say it lies in his throat!" hissed Mastowix, although he felt in his heart that something dreadful was impending.

"Silence! Here is a document addressed to you from New York, by Paul Zobriskie, in which he addresses you in unmistakable terms of fraternity, and refers to other correspondence, together with certain other information which he had received, and which could never have reached him save through you. What have you to say?"

It required all the nerve the traitor had to prevent him from falling to the floor. The members of the tribunal watched him narrowly, and saw that he grew very pale.

But finally he found strength to speak.

"It is false both in matter and spirit," he said; but the next uppermost question in his thoughts was--what spy could have obtained possession of the document?

"And you plead?"

"Not guilty!" he replied, aggressively.

"Call Tobasco," said the president, and a guard soon produced the police spy, and he was sworn.

"Do you recognize that document?" the president asked, handing him Zobriskie's letter?

"I do."

"Give us the history of it."

"I first saw it in New York, in the hands of Paul Zobriskie, on board the steamer Baltic, then about to sail. I was watching Zobriskie, and saw him approach a young man and ask him if he was going to St. Petersburg, and on being informed that he was, asked him if he would deliver this letter to Prince Mastowix, at the same time enjoining him to be very careful and not let it reach another's hands."

"It is false, vile spy!" roared the prince.

"Silence!" shouted the president. "Proceed!"

"The young American agreed to do as directed, and having had occasion to suspect that Prince Mastowix was a Nihilist leader in disguise, I resolved to follow the bearer of the letter, although I could not learn that he was a Nihilist. I did so, and watched him closely. I saw him visit the prince, and contrived to follow in the disguise of an attendant. I saw him give him the letter, and for doing so he was arrested. The boy struggled and finally escaped. During the confusion in the courtyard the prince ran out to learn what it was about, and I then contrived to steal the letter, which still lay upon his table, and to escape with it without detection. I took it to the prefect of police."

Mastowix was so completely staggered at this that he sat glaring wildly at the spy, unable to move or speak.

The members of the tribunal consulted for only a moment.

Finally the president spoke:

"Prince Mastowix that was, Peter Mastowix that is, this document and the evidence has been placed before our imperial master, the Czar, and by his orders you have been brought here for trial and condemnation. The tribunal adjudges you guilty of treason to the State, and sentences you to death. Remove the prisoner!"

Bowed and completely broken, the guilty wretch, the petty tyrant who had heaped wrong, misery and death upon so many others, was taken from the inquisition, crushed and broken.

Three days later he was led out into the yard of the very prison over which he had long and cruelly held rule, and shot to death by the guard, the very men whom he commanded oft before.

There is neither justice nor pity among the Russian nobles, and no remorse in the hearts of the peasant soldiery who have been brutalized for a thousand years. So this guard shot their late commander as they would have fired upon a dog; indeed, if there was any feeling in their breasts, it was one of revenge for the many brutal wrongs they had suffered at his hands.

It was a severe blow to the Nihilists of Russia, this discovery and death of Mastowix, but as no cause was assigned for it, they were left to conjecture, although they feared the worst.

Mastowix was ambitious; he even had the hardihood to look to the extinction of the royal family at the hands of this powerful order, and trusted to chance to place himself high in power, if not on the very throne of a new dynasty.

And he was of great service to the Nihilists, for he could keep them well posted continually. But that fatal letter cut him off, while yet his hope was in the bud, as well as other prominent members of the order, for eight others whose names were mentioned by Zobriskie were also arrested and sentenced to exile in the terrible mines of Siberia.

SIBERIA.

A glance at the map will show the geographical location of far-away Siberia, but no map, no book will tell you what a hell on earth this northernmost arm of the Russian Empire is.

But little is known of it in Russia itself, not even by the members of the autocratic political family, beyond the fact of its being a dreary, frozen land of political exile, a region without light or hope for the banished.

The people shudder at the mention of it, for they have heard much of it from the broken wretches who have been fortunate enough to escape, after years of toil and suffering. They know that the innocent as well as the guilty are liable to be sent there; that thousands upon thousands have died or been murdered there by the autocrat's petty tyrants, placed there to guard and work them, and that their bones molder or bleach upon the inhospitable shores, where wolves lay in wait for the bodies of victims which are thrown where they can reach them, and thus save the trouble of burial.

A large portion of the penal colony is honey-combed with mines, which the prisoners are forced to work for the benefit of the government that has exiled them there; and thousands of poor wretches, when once forced into them, never again see the light of day, but drag out a miserable existence hundreds of feet underground.

The serfs have been nominally freed; but slavery of the most horrible and degrading kinds is rampant in Russia to-day. The press is gagged and suppressed, and no man is free to speak his opinion regarding the tyrants and their doings.

Is it any wonder the people meet in secret conclave and resort to dynamite?

After a long and dreary passage, William Barnwell was landed, with his companions in misery, not one of whom could speak English, in Siberia, more dead than alive.

They had been treated worse than cattle during transportation, and now their fortunes were on the eve of being made even worse.

However guilty the others of his party may have been, his case was one of the grossest injustice, and one that the United States would have been quick to demand satisfaction for had there been an opportunity of finding it out.

As before stated, there is no such a thing in Russia as justice. All is selfish tyranny and inborn ingratitude.

They--the members of the secret tribunal--knew that the important letter which enabled the government to arrest dangerous and wholly unsuspected enemies had been brought over by a young American gentleman, and also that his identity had been blotted out, and he sent to Siberia; but whether he was innocent or guilty, they never gave themselves the trouble to think, and so, virtually, that was the end of him, so far as they were concerned or cared; not even thanks enough for the result he had innocently brought about to inquire into his case at all.

On the first day of their arrival they were assigned to different gangs for different mines, and on the second, to give the newcomers an idea of what insubordination brought about, they were treated to the revolting sight of the punishing of prisoners with the knout.

There were nearly fifty of them, but what their crimes had been Barnwell had no means of knowing, as he could not understand the Russian language.

But the poor, miserable wretches were unmercifully flogged on their bare backs with that terrible weapon of torture, the knout; and while some of them sent up piteous cries as the cruel whip tore their flesh, others received their punishment in stolid silence, as though disdaining to let the tyrants know that they suffered, while still others paid back every lash with a curse.

It was one of the most terrible sights that young Barnwell had ever conceived of even, and being forced to witness it he became sick and faint at heart. He had read of such things but until now he never believed them possible. He could not believe that anything wearing the human form could be so fiendishly cruel. Indeed, it seemed to be a holiday treat to those bearded beasts who wielded the thongs, and whenever a particular case was administered upon they would look at the newcomer with mocking leers.

Finally to Barnwell's infinite horror a young Russian girl was brought out bared to the waist.

She could not have been above twenty years of age and under different circumstances would have been beautiful and evidently belonged to a grade higher than the peasants.

"Zera Vola!" he heard the governor's officer call as the girl was led out for punishment.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Barnwell, "are they going to flog her? I had rather die myself than see it!"

He looked around, but no one appeared to understand him, although he noted the horror and disgust on the faces of the new exiles.

The girl was blushing deeply at this forced exposition of her person, but she seemed otherwise firm and undaunted.

The wretch with the knout grinned, and made some insulting remarks, which his fellow-brutes appeared to enjoy very much.

Then she was placed in position and forced to bow her head so that her beautiful back might be rounded up for the cruel blows. And yet she did not flinch, and Barnwell saw red scars that told of previous castigations.

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