Siberian Vehmgerichte, who, therefore, dared not associate with their fellow-prisoners, and who were living, by permission of the prison authorities, in the strictest solitary confinement. Over the head of every one of these men hung an invisible sword of Damocles, and sooner or later, in one place or another, it was sure to fall. The records of Russian prisons are full of cases in which the sentence of death pronounced by an artél has been executed years afterwards, and in a place far removed from the scene of the offense. In one recent case the traitor was choked to death one night, at sea, while on his way in a convict steamer to the island of Saghalín, and in another the informer was found one morning with his throat cut in a Caucasian étape.
The prison officials throughout Siberia have long been aware of the existence of this secret criminal organization, but they have never been able to suppress it, and they now give to it a certain sort of recognition—putting up with its inevitable evils and making the most of its merits. A convoy officer, for example, wishes to be able to report to his superior at the end of the year that not a single exile has escaped while in his charge. He summons the stárosta, or chief of the artél, and says to him, "Call the boys together and tell them, from me, that if the artél will agree not to allow any escapes from the party on my beat, I will look the other way when they take off their leg-fetters."[1] The stárosta replies, "Slúshiu, S'" [I hear, sir], and goes back into the kámera to lay this proposition before the artél. The artél accepts it, and every chained convict begins pounding at the ankle-bands of his leg-fetters. The convoy officer, of course, has himself committed a penal offense in entering into this sort of an agreement, but he knows that the artél will never betray him, and he is relieved at once from all anxiety with regard to escapes. If, after the
- ↑ The ankle-bands of Russian leg-fetters fit so loosely that when they have been pounded with a stone into the form of an ellipse they can generally be slipped off over the heel. Of course this cannot be done, however, without the connivance of the convoy officers and the soldiers of the guard.
