Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/244

232 given to the former inhabitants of the "stone bags" to revenge themselves upon the men guilty of their torture—and upon the innocent, who, in silence, allowed the crime of the others to pass unchallenged.

In the early days of April, when I had still six months of imprisonment ahead of me, one morning at about seven o'clock our few possessions were loaded on a big, flat wagon, and we were herded into the crude "Black Marias" of Russia and taken over to the criminal prison in the commercial quarter of Harbin.

This immense building of red brick, with barred windows, stood enclosed by a high wall, at whose comers soldiers in protruding, round turrets swept the sides of the square. Other armed guards were posted at the entrance and were doing sentinel duty all around the base of the wall. When the skeleton iron door closed with a dull noise and a rattle behind us, a crushing presentiment, an indescribable longing fastened itself upon our hearts.

Some guards, armed with revolvers and swords, were stationed about the prison yard, where a group of prisoners were carrying big buckets filled with dishwater. In an exercise cage, which had been built in the centre of the yard, a prisoner was shuffling up and down with a heavy, swaying tread, induced by the irons on his feet, which clanked at every movement.

From a side wing of the building a line of women prisoners under the care of a matron were just coming out. They were carrying soiled linen and were evidently going to the wash-room. One of them spoke to me. She was no longer young, rather tall and had a thin, gloomy face, out of which gleamed threateningly stern, black eyes. As she passed near me, she bent toward me and whispered:

"You want, perhaps, to die? I have a sure poison,