Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/363

Rh. It was a journey full of adventures and narrow escapes, and nothing but the coolness, courage, and good fortune of the fugitive carried him through in safety. There were four foreign vessels in the port of Vládivostók at that time, and one of them, a coal steamer, was flying the flag of Great Britain. Volkhófski went on board, ascertained that the steamer was bound for Japan, and asked the captain if he would take a passenger who had neither passport nor official permission to leave the empire. The captain hesitated at first, but when Volkhófski related his story, said that he was able and willing to pay for his passage, and exhibited my photograph and letters as proofs of his trustworthiness, the captain consented to take him. A hiding-place was soon found for him, and when the Russian officials came on board to clear the vessel, he was nowhere to be seen. A few hours later the steamer was at sea, and the escaping political exile, as he stood on the upper deck and watched the slow fading of the Siberian coast in the west, drew a long deep breath of relief, and turned his face, with reviving hope, towards the land where a personal opinion concerning human affairs is not regarded as "prejudicial to public tranquillity," and where a man who tries to make the world better and happier is not punished for it with seven years of solitary confinement, eleven years of exile, and the loss of more than half his family.

After having paid his steamer fare from Vládivostók to Nagasaki, and from Nagasaki to Yokohama, Volkhófski found himself in the latter place with hardly money enough to get across the Pacific, and not half enough to reach Washington. He made inquiries concerning vessels about to sail for the western coast of America, and found that the English steamer Batavia was on the point of clearing for Vancouver, British Columbia. Going at once on board he asked the purser what the fare to Vancouver would be in the steerage. The officer looked at him for a moment, saw that, although a foreigner, he was unmistakably a