is chair.

Barnwell removed the wreck of the feast as noiselessly as possible, and
left him alone, not daring, however, to go far away, for fear of again
exciting his ire, knowing that he had the power to consign him to the
underground mines, or even to kill him like a dog. And so he sat and
waited his pleasure.

But his anxiety was hardly to be mastered, for he wanted a few more
words with Batavsky regarding the solution of the diagram he had given
him, not knowing whether he would be alive when he might see him next.

What new thoughts crowded themselves into his mind now!

And although his desire to escape was no greater than ever, yet the
possibilities that would now attend it were overwhelming, almost.

But how was he to give force to all this--how could he escape from that
closely-guarded colony, with armed sentinels at every turn, and trained
bloodhounds ready to follow any scents even if he escaped from the
guards. He would be sure to be missed, and the guards knowing nothing of
his whereabouts, let it be supposed, those savage brutes would be
started out in every direction until they found his scent, and then run
him down to death from their fangs or for an easy capture.

He had seen too much of it during the terrible year he had lived in
Siberia. Many a wretch, ambitious to be free, he had known to set his
life upon the hazard of a chance, and attempt to escape into the Ural
mountains, only to be run to bay by those terrible hounds, and either
killed by them or dragged back into the captivity sure to be made worse
than before.

And he had seen men have their flesh stripped from their naked backs
with the cruel knout, in the hands of unfeeling wretches.

And had he not been buoyed up by hope of one day escaping, he would
surely have taken his own life as he had actually seen others do when
hope failed them.

The situation was a dreadful one, even to a criminal; but what was it to
an innocent man like William Barnwell? But, after all, it gave nerve to
his heart.

While cogitating thus, Kanoffskie, the chief surgeon, awoke with a
snort.

He glared wildly around the room in a startled way.

Barnwell looked at him inquiringly.

"Did you see anything?" he finally asked.

"Nothing unusual, sir."

"Did you hear anything?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Did I cry out in my sleep?"

"No, sir, not that I heard."

"It must have been a nightmare, but it was dreadful," mused Kanoffskie.

"They are sometimes v