"To-morrow the sentence will be pronounced in its final form and we
shall all be placed together," said Tanya Kovalchuk consolingly.
"Until the execution we shall all he together."

Musya was silent. Then she resolutely moved forward.



CHAPTER III
WHY SHOULD I BE HANGED?


Two weeks before the terrorists had been tried the same military
district court, with a different set of judges, had tried and
condemned to death by hanging Ivan Yanson, a peasant.

Ivan Yanson was a workman for a well-to-do farmer, in no way different
from other workmen. He was an Esthonian by birth, from Vezenberg, and
in the course of several years, passing from one farm to another, he
had come close to the capital. He spoke Russian very poorly, and as
his master was a Russian, by name Lazarev, and as there were no
Esthonians in the neighborhood, Yanson had practically remained silent
for almost two years. In general, he was apparently not inclined to
talk, and was silent not only with human beings, but even with
animals. He would water the horse in silence, harness it in silence,
moving about it, slowly and lazily, with short, irresolute steps, and
when the horse, annoyed by his manner, would begin to frolic, to
become capricious, he would beat it in silence with a heavy whip. He
would beat it cruelly, with stolid, angry persistency, and when this
happened at a time when he was suffering from the aftereffects of a