This was but the first of a series of sittings which were prolonged through nearly half a year.  During this time his treatment improved; his cell was kept clean; he had no cause to complain of his food; he was allowed to walk for an hour daily in the corridor, which, though cold and damp, in some degree satisfied his need of exercise.  He was always guarded by two sentinels, to whom he was forbidden to speak.  He learned in some way, however, that several of his co-accused were his fellow-prisoners:  they were confined in another part of the fortress, and he but once caught a glimpse of one of them—­so changed that he hardly recognized him.  His neighbors on the corridor were common criminals.  The president of the committee offered him the use of a library, but he only asked for a Bible, “with which,” he says, “I was no longer alone.”  His greatest suffering arose from the nervous irritability caused by the unremitting watch of the sentinel at his door, which drove him almost frantic.  The sensation of being spied at every instant, in every action, of meeting this relentless, irresponsive gaze on waking, of encountering it at each minute of the day, was maddening.  From daybreak he longed for the night, which should deliver him from the sight.  Sometimes, beside himself, he would suddenly put his own face close to the grating and stare into the tormenting eyes to force them to divert their gaze for a moment, laughing like a savage when he succeeded.  He was in this feverish condition when called to his last examination.  He perceived at once, from the solemnity of all present, that the crisis had come.  His sentence was pronounced:  death, commuted by Prince Bibikoff’s intercession to hard labor for life in Siberia.  He was degraded from the nobility, to which order, like half the inhabitants of Poland, he belonged, and condemned to make the journey in chains.  Without being taken back to his cell, he was at once put into irons, the same rusty, galling ones he had worn already, and placed in a kibitka, or traveling-carriage, between two armed guards.  The gates of the fortress closed behind him, and before him opened the road to Siberia.

[Illustration:  OUTSTARING the guard.]

His destination was about two thousand miles distant.  The incidents of the journey were few and much of the same character.  Charity and sympathy were shown him by people of every class.  Travelers of distinction, especially ladies, pursued him with offers of assistance and money, which he would not accept.  The only gifts which he did not refuse were the food and drink brought him by the peasants where they stopped to change horses:  wherever there was a halt the good people plied him with tea, brandy and simple dainties, which he gratefully accepted.  At one station a man in the uniform of the Russian civil service timidly offered him a parcel wrapped in a silk handkerchief, saying, “Accept this from my saint.”  Piotrowski, repelled by