ng the pleasure of the government.

That is the way the tyrants of Russia serve people, whether guilty or
innocent, if they happen to incur their displeasure in any way.

Is it any wonder that they revolt, or that they resort to secret
intrigue, to dynamite, and all other means, however bloody the
unthinking world may regard them, to give back some of the terror which
they have dealt out for centuries? No, it is no wonder at all.

Two weeks William Barnwell languished in the filthy cell of that
Bastile, when he was finally marched out into the courtyard one day, in
company with some fifty other wretches who had been sentenced to exile.

And what a change those two weeks had produced in that handsome American
youth! Unwashed, unkempt, dazed by the light of day he had been kept
from so long, his most intimate friends would not have known him.

The detail was ready, and outside of the prison were hundreds of loving
ones, waiting to take a last farewell of fathers, brothers, lovers, whom
they would probably never see again. But Barnwell had no one waiting for
him, and it seemed that life, hope, ambition, everything was crushed out
of him.

CHAPTER IV.

SWIFT RETRIBUTION.

Retribution does not always go with justice, however, as in this case,
notably.

William Barnwell was hurried away to exile, for reasons the reader fully
understands; but even then Prince Mastowix felt far from secure. The
unaccountable absence of that correspondence haunted him day and night.

But not for long, however, for that treasonable document was in the
hands of General Walisky, prefect of police, and by him presented to the
Czar and his ministers, together with all the particulars in the case.

Action was at once taken and search made for the young American who had
innocently acted as the messenger.

But the spirit of the fiend was soon shown, for Mastowix had destroyed
every trace of the American's individuality, blending it with others
who, like him, were simply known by numbers.

From the moment a political prisoner is thrown into prison in Russia, he
loses his identity, although the authorities keep a secret roll
containing the names and other particulars regarding the unfortunate
wretches, but that roll is never seen by the outside world.

In the fortress-like Bastile over which Prince Mastowix held sway, he
had charge of this fearful secret record; but the better to blot his
existence out, should inquiries ever be made, he