When they illegally impressed me at
Helsingfors and forced me to join the Russian Navy, I made the best of
a bad bargain, and being an expert seaman, was reasonably well
treated, and promoted, but at last they discovered I was in
correspondence with a Nihilist circle in London, and when I was
arrested, I demanded the rights of an American citizen. That doomed
me. I was sent, without trial, to the Trogzmondoff in April of this
year. Arriving there I was foolish enough to threaten, and say my
comrades had means of letting the United States Government know, and
that a battleship would teach the gaolers of the rock better manners.
"The cells hewn in the rock are completely dark, so I lost all count
of time. You might think we would know night from day by the bringing
in of our meals, but such was not the case. The gaoler brought in a
large loaf of black bread, and said it was to serve me for four days.
He placed the loaf on a ledge of rock about three feet from the floor,
which served as both table and bed. In excavating the cell this ledge
had been left intact, with a bench of stone rising from the floor
opposite. Indeed, so ingenious had been the workmen who hewed out this
room that they carved a rounded stone pillow at one end of the shelf.
"I do not know how many days I had been in prison when the explosion
occurred. It made the whole rock quiver, and I wondered what had
happened.
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