Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/272

260 bent and straightened his great, strong back. Without speaking to any one else, he went straight to Drujenin and began to whisper:

"You have the 'hair' (saw)?"

"Yes."

"That is good, for the bars in the wash-room window have got to be cut. You understand?"

Drujenin gave a nod of his head and, leaving his companion, mixed with the other prisoners but all the time he was keeping his eye on the guard and, the moment he was sure the man was not watching, he sidled up to one of the palings in the fence, leaned lazily against it and began rubbing it with something. After a moment he felt a sharp scratch on his finger, rolled over closer to the fence to cover his movements and took from the disclosed slit in the side of the bar a long thin hack-saw blade. Having hidden it inside his blouse, he turned away and began walking leisurely up and down, whistling unconcernedly as he went. Then, after a turn or two, he came up to the fence dividing the cage of the criminals from the yard of the political prisoners and spoke to me in a low voice:

"Comrade, if you hear anything to-night, do not be disturbed, and say nothing to anyone."

"Saryn da na kiechku?" He nodded in affirmation and turned away.

Drujenin was one of those ordinary men of whom the Russian system often made criminals. He had been a simple peasant, following the occupation of a Siberian hunter. Once, when he was returning from one of his regular expeditions into the woods, he was arrested by the police and accused of having taken part in an attack upon a mail courier. Although there was no evidence against him except the bare fact that he was simply found