garrisoned in the fortress there. Twenty Polish patriots were confined
in the casemates, awaiting execution; men of education, honourable
men, men with wives and children, condemned to be hanged because they
had conspired together--a foolish, ineffectual conspiracy--against
what they regarded as the tyranny of Russia, for the liberty of their
country. They had struck no blow, but they had written and talked; and
they were to be hanged.

'The fate of these men seemed to Kasghine very unjust, very inhuman.
It preyed upon his mind. He took it into his head to rescue them, to
contrive their escape. I do not say that this was wise or right; but
it was certainly generous. No doubt he had a period of hesitation. On
the one hand was his _consigne_ as a Russian soldier; on the other,
what he conceived to be his duty as a man. He knew that the act he
contemplated spelt ruin for himself, that it spelt death; and he had
every reason to hold life sweet.

'However, he opened communications with the prisoners in the
casemates, and with their friends in the town. And one night he got
them all safely out,--by daybreak they were secure in hiding. Kasghine
himself remained behind. Some one would have to be punished. If the
guilty man fled, an innocent man would be punished.

'Well, he was tried by Court Martial, and sentenced to be shot. But
the Emperor, out of consideration for Kasghine's family, commuted the
sentence to one of hard labour for life in the mines of Kara,--a cruel
kindness. After eight years in the mines, with blunted faculties,
broken health, disfigured by the loss of an eye, and already no doubt
in some measure demoralised by the hardships he had suffered, he was
pardoned,--another cruel kindness. He was pardoned on condition that