as it approaches it is
accompanied by cries and loud questioning. Without knowing the cause of
the outbreak, I seize the first hard object that comes to my hand, a
dictionary, and with one bound I am on my table, and in my turn break
the glass of my window, the fragments of which ring gaily as they fall,
some into the court-yard, and the others on the stone floor of my cell.

As the window falls to pieces a flood of light invades my cell, and I
feel the warm air, and smell a perfume as of new-mown hay. For a moment
I am blinded, suffocated, then with both hands I seize the iron bars and
draw myself up to the narrow window ledge. A confused noise of breaking
glass gradually passing away in the distance, and the cracking of wood
fills the pure air of the glorious summer morning; while on all sides
are heard the voices of anxious men and women, all asking the same
questions, "What has happened? Why are we revolting?"

[Illustration: "SHOT HIM THROUGH THE HEAD."]

For a long time these questions remain unanswered, then at last a new
and distant voice--at times rendered inaudible by the wind--announces
that a warder, or a guard, has killed one of our comrades, the prisoner
Ivanoff, in his cell, and that the prisoners in the other buildings are
breaking the furniture and the cell doors.

This reply, which comrades transmit from window to window, petrifies me.
After hearing the explosion and the words spoken in the corridor; after
a long and anxious incertitude; after this announcement of a revolt in
which I myself am taking part--the reply is not unexpected. And yet I
understand nothing of the matter; I am thoroughly upset, and my brain
refuses to understand and believe. Killed? Ivanoff, the youth whom, by
the way, I do not know personally. Killed? But why? Without weapons and
under lock and key, what can he have done to deserve death? Has he
attempted to escape? But does one attempt such an enterprise in open
day and under the eyes of sentries and warders? Besides, Ivanoff had
committed no other crime than fetching from the post-office a letter
intended for one of his friends whose name he refused to give, while the
friend, arrested since, has assumed the responsibility of the
correspondence. Ivanoff was to have been liberated on bail in the course
of a few days, and do those in such a position attempt escape on the eve
of their release? But why, why has he been killed?

These questions I ask myself while the sound of b