Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/281

Rh "Starosta, is not treason the most despicable thing on earth?"

"Yes," I answered briefly.

"You are right," he whispered, and left my cell.

But this was not the end of Saryn da na kiechku. Some days later, during the exercise, I saw Drujenin without his irons. His appearance struck me immediately, for he was so pale that he seemed almost transparent, and his eyes shone as though an interior fire blazed out through them.

"What is the matter?" I inquired of him, coming up to the fence around the pen.

"I cannot live longer in this way," he whispered in answer. "I am at the end of my endurance."

After this laconic and, to me, incomprehensible reply, he turned right away and began talking with Lapin. Suddenly the latter stopped abruptly, listened carefully to what his friend was saying and then evidently began explaining something to him, as I caught him surreptitiously pointing to a place in the outside wall.

I was soon to have all this made clear to me. When the exercise hour was finished and the prisoners were on their way to the building, two men slipped out from the crowd—Lapin and Drujenin. At first no one paid any attention to them, and the guards began to call them only when they had reached the enclosure wall. Suddenly Lapin bent over and leaned with his hands against the wall. Drujenin was on his back in a flash and was shot upward as his companion straightened to his full height. This allowed him to reach the coping with one hand, where he swung for an instant before he could secure a hold with his second and begin to scramble up. Only a second was needed to take him over and