Historical Tales Volume Viii Part 24

Many of the exiles escape,--some from the districts where they live free, with privilege of getting a living in any manner available, others from the prisons or mines. The mere feat of running away is in many cases not difficult, but to get out of the country is a very different matter. The officers do not make any serious efforts to prevent escapes, and can be easily bribed to allow them, since they are enabled then to turn in the name of the prisoner as still on hand and charge the government for his support. In the gold-mines the convicts work in gangs, and here one will lie in a ditch and be covered with rubbish by his comrades. When his absence is discovered he is not to be found, and at nightfall he slips from the trench and makes for the forest.

To spend the summer in the woods is the joy of many convicts. They have no hope of getting out of the country, which is of such vast extent that winter is sure to descend upon them before they can approach the border, but the freedom of life in the woods has for them an undefinable charm.

Then as the frigid season approaches they permit themselves to be caught, and go back to their labor or confinement with hearts lightened by the enjoyment of their vagrant summer wanderings. There is in some cases another advantage to be gained. A twenty years' convict who has escaped and lets himself be caught again may give a false name, and avoid all incriminating answers through a convenient failure of memory.

If not detected, he may in this way get off with a five years' sentence as a vagrant. But if detected his last lot is worse than his first, since the time he has already served goes for nothing.

There is another peril to which escaping prisoners are exposed. The native tribes are apt to look upon them as game and shoot them down at sight. It is said that they receive three roubles for each convict they bring to the police, dead or alive. "If you shoot a squirrel," they say, "you get only his skin; but if you shoot a _varnak_ [convict] you get his skin and his clothing too."

Atkinson, the Siberian traveller, tells a remarkable story of an escape of prisoners, which may be given in ill.u.s.tration of the above remarks.

One night in September, 1850, the people of Barnaoul, a town in Western Siberia, were roused from their slumbers by the clatter of a party of mounted Cossacks galloping up the quiet street. The story they brought was an alarming one. Siberia had been invaded by three thousand Tartars of the desert, who were marching towards the town. Nearly all the gold from the Siberian gold-mines lay in Barnaoul, waiting to be smelted into bars and sent to St. Petersburg. There was much silver also, with abundance of other valuable government stores. All this would form a rich booty for an army of nomad plunderers, could they obtain it, and the news filled the town with excitement and alarm.

As the night pa.s.sed and the day came on, other Cossacks arrived with still more alarming news. The three thousand had grown to seven thousand, many of them armed with rifles, who were burning the Kalmuck villages as they advanced, and murdering every man, woman, and child who fell into their hands. Some thought that the wild hordes of Asia were breaking loose again, as in the time of Genghis Khan, and the terror of many of the people grew intense.

By noon the enemy had increased to ten thousand, and the people everywhere were flying before their advance. Hasty steps were taken for defence and for the safety of the gold and silver, while orders were despatched in all directions to gather a force to meet them on their way. But as the days pa.s.sed on the alarm began to subside. The number of the invaders declined almost as rapidly as it had grown. They were not advancing upon the town. No army was needed to oppose them, and Cossacks were sent to stop the march of the troops. In the course of two days more the truth was sifted from the ma.s.s of wild rumors and reports. The ten thousand invaders dwindled to forty Circa.s.sian prisoners who had escaped from the gold-mines on the Birioussa.

These fugitives had not a thought of invading the Russian dominions.

They were prisoners of war who, with heartless cruelty, had been condemned to the mines of Siberia for the crime of a patriotic effort to save their country, and their sole purpose was to return to their far-distant homes.

By the aid of small quant.i.ties of gold, which they had managed to hide from their guards, they succeeded in purchasing a sufficient supply of rifles and ammunition from the neighboring tribesmen, which they hid in a mountain cavern about seven miles away. There was no fear of the Tartars betraying them, as they had received for the arms ten times their value, and would have been severely punished if found with gold in their possession.

On a Sat.u.r.day afternoon near the end of July, 1850, after completing the day's labors, the Circa.s.sians left the mine in small parties, going in different directions. This excited no suspicion, as they were free to hunt or otherwise amuse themselves after their work. They gradually came together in a mountain ravine about six miles south of the mines. Not far from this locality a stud of spare horses were kept at pasture, and hither some of the fugitives made their way, reaching the spot just as the animals were being driven into the enclosure for the night. The three horse-keepers suddenly found themselves covered with rifles and forced to yield themselves prisoners, while their captors began to select the best horses from the herd.

The Circa.s.sians deemed it necessary to take the herdsmen with them to prevent them from giving the alarm. Two of these also were skilful hunters and well acquainted with the surrounding mountain regions, and were likely to prove useful as guides. In all fifty-five horses were chosen, out of the three or four hundred in the herd. The remainder were turned out of the enclosure and driven into the forest, as if they had broken loose and their keepers were absent in search of them. This done, the captors sought their friends in the glen, by whom they were received with cheers, and before midnight, the moon having risen, the fugitives began their long and dangerous journey.

Sunrise found them on a high summit, which commanded a view of the gold-mine they had left, marked by the curling smoke which rose from fires kept constantly alive to drive away the mosquitoes, the pests of the region. Taking a last look at their place of exile, they moved on into a gra.s.sy valley, where they breakfasted and fed their horses. On they went, keeping a sharp watch upon their guides, day by day, until the evening of the fourth day found them past the crest of the range and descending into a narrow valley, where they decided to spend the night.

Thus far all had gone well. They were now beyond the Russian frontier and in Chinese territory, and as their guides knew the country no farther, they were set free and their rifles restored to them. Venison had been obtained plentifully on the march, and fugitives and captives alike pa.s.sed the evening in feasting and enjoyment. With daybreak the Siberians left to return to the mine and the Circa.s.sians resumed their route.

From this time onward difficulties confronted them. They were in a region of mountains, precipices, ravines, and torrents. One dangerous river they swam, but, instead of keeping on due south, the difficulties of the way induced them to change their course to the west, alarmed, probably, by the vast snowy peaks of the Tangnou Mountains in the distance, though if they had pa.s.sed these all danger from Siberia would have been at an end. As it was, after more than three weeks of wandering, the nature of the country forced them towards the northwest, until they came upon the eastern sh.o.r.e of the Altin-Kool Lake.

Here was their final chance. Had they followed the lake southerly they might still have reached a place of safety. But ill fortune brought them upon it at a point where it seemed easiest to round it on the north, and they pa.s.sed on, hoping soon to reach its western sh.o.r.es. But the Bea, the impa.s.sable torrent that flows from the lake, forced them again many miles northward in search of a ford, and into a locality from which their chance of escape was greatly reduced.

More than two months had pa.s.sed since they left the mines, and the poor wanderers were still in the vast Siberian prison, from which, if they had known the country, they might now have been far away. The region they had reached was thinly inhabited by Kalmuck Tartars, and they finally entered a village of this people, with whose inhabitants they unluckily got into a broil, ending in a battle, in which several Kalmucks were killed and the village burned.

To this event was due the terrifying news that reached Barnaoul, the alarm being carried to a Cossack fort whose commandant was drunk at the time and sent out a series of exaggerated reports. As for the fugitives, they had in effect signed their death-warrant by their conflict with the Kalmucks. The news spread from tribe to tribe, and when the real number of the fugitives was learned the tribesmen entered savagely into pursuit, determined to obtain revenge for their slain kinsmen. The Circa.s.sians were wandering in an unknown country. The Kalmucks knew every inch of the ground. Scouts followed the fugitives, and after them came well-mounted hunters, who rapidly closed upon the trail, being on the evening of the third day but three miles away.

The Circa.s.sians had crossed the Bea and turned to the south, but here they found themselves in an almost impa.s.sable group of snow-clad mountains. On they pushed, deeper and deeper into the chain, still closely pursued, the Kalmucks so managing the pursuit as to drive them into a pathless region of the hills. This accomplished, they came on leisurely, knowing that they had their prey safe.

At length the hungry and weary warriors were driven into a mountain pa.s.s, where the pursuers, who had hitherto saved their bullets, began a savage attack, rifle-b.a.l.l.s dropping fast into the glen. The fugitives sought shelter behind some fallen rocks, and returned the fire with effect. But they were at a serious disadvantage, the hunters, who far outnumbered them, and knew every crag in the ravines, picking them off in safety from behind places of shelter. From point to point the Circa.s.sians fell back, defending their successive stations desperately, answering every call to surrender with shouts of defiance, and holding each spot until the fall of their comrades warned them that the place was no longer tenable.

Night fell during the struggle, and under its cover the remaining fifteen of the brave fugitives made their way on foot deeper into the mountains, abandoning their horses to the merciless foe. At daybreak they resumed their march, scaling the rocky heights in front. Here, scanning the country in search of their pursuers, not one of whom was to be seen, they turned to the west, a range of snow-clad peaks closing the way in front. A forest of cedars before them seemed to present their only chance of escape, and they hurried towards it, but when within two hundred yards of the wood a puff of white smoke rose from a thicket, and one of the fugitives fell. The hunters had ambushed them on this spot, and as they rushed for the shelter of some rocks near by five more fell before the bullets of their foes.

The fire was returned with some effect, and then a last desperate rush was made for the forest shelter. Only four of the poor fellows reached it, and of these some were wounded. The thick underwood now screened them from the volley that whistled after them, and they were soon safe from the effects of rifle-shots in the tangled forest depths.

Meanwhile the clouds had been gathering black and dense, and soon rain and sleet began to fall, accompanied by a fierce gale. Two small parties of Kalmucks were sent in pursuit, while the others began to prepare an encampment under the cedars. The storm rapidly grew into a hurricane, snow falling thick and whirling into eddies, while the pursuers were soon forced to return without having seen the small remnant of the gallant band. For three days the storm continued, and then was followed by a sharp frost. The winter had set in.

No further pursuit was attempted. It was not needed. Nothing more was ever seen of the four Circa.s.sians, nor any trace of them found. They undoubtedly found their last resting-place under the snows of that mountain storm.

_THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF j.a.pAN._

On the memorable Sat.u.r.day of May 27, 1905, in far eastern waters in which the guns of war-s.h.i.+ps had rarely thundered before, took place an event that opened the eyes of the world as if a new planet had swept into its ken or a great comet had suddenly blazed out in the eastern skies. It was that of one of the most stupendous naval victories in history, won by a people who fifty years before had just begun to emerge from the dim twilight of mediaeval barbarism.

j.a.pan, the Nemesis of the East, had won her maiden spurs on the field of warfare in her brief conflict with China in 1894, but that was looked upon as a fight between a young game-c.o.c.k and a decrepit barn-yard fowl, and the Western world looked with a half-pitying indulgence upon the spectacle of the long-slumbering Orient serving its apprentices.h.i.+p in modern war. Yet the rapid and complete triumph of the island empire over the leviathan of the Asiatic continent was much of a revelation of the latent power that dwelt in that newly-aroused archipelago, and when in 1903 j.a.pan began to speak in tones of menace to a second leviathan, that of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, the world's interest was deeply stirred again.

Would little j.a.pan dare attack a European power and one so great and populous as Russia, with half Asia already in its clasp, with strong fortresses and fleets within striking distance, and with a continental railway over which it could pour thousands of armed battalions? The idea seemed preposterous, many looked upon the att.i.tude of j.a.pan as the madness of temerity, and when on February 6, 1904, the echo of the guns at Port Arthur was heard the world gave a gasp of astonishment and alarm.

Were there any among us then who believed it possible for little j.a.pan to triumph over the colossus it had so daringly attacked? If any, they were very few. It is doubtful if there was a man in Russia itself who dreamed of anything but eventual victory, with probably the adding of the islands of j.a.pan to its chaplet of orient pearls. True, the success of the attack on their fleet was a painful surprise, and when they saw their great iron-clads locked up in Port Arthur harbor it was cause for annoyance. But if the fleet had been taken by surprise, the fortress was claimed to be impregnable, the army was powerful and accustomed to victory over its foes in Asia, and it was with an amused contempt of their half-barbarian foes and confidence in rapid and brilliant triumph that the Muscovite cohorts streamed across Asia with arms in hand and hope in heart.

We do not propose to tell here what followed. The world knows it. Men read with an interest they had rarely taken in foreign affairs of the rapid and stupendous successes of the little soldiers of Nippon, the indomitable valor of the troops, the striking skill of their leaders, the breadth and completeness of their tactics, the training and discipline of the men, the rare hygienic condition of the camps, their impetuosity in attack, their persistence in pursuit; in short, the sudden advent of an army with all the requisites of a victorious career, as pitted against the ill-handled myriads of Russia, not wanting in brute courage, but sadly lacking in efficient leaders.h.i.+p and strategical skill in their commanders.

Back went the Russian hosts, mile by mile, league by league, steadily pressed northward by the unrelenting persistence of the island warriors; while on the Liao-tung peninsula the besieging forces crept on foot by foot, caring apparently nothing for wounds or death, caring only for the possession of the fortress which they had been sent to win.

We should like to record some victories for the Russians, but the annals of the war tell us of none. Outgeneralled and driven back from their strong position on the Yalu River; decisively beaten in the great battle of Liao-yang; checked in their offensive movement on the Shakhe River, with immense loss; and finally utterly defeated in the desperate two weeks' struggle around Mukden; the field warfare ended in the two great armies facing each other at Harbin, with months of manoeuvring before them.

Meanwhile the campaign in the peninsula had gone on with like desperate efforts and final success of the j.a.panese, Port Arthur surrendering to its irresistible besiegers on the opening day of 1905. With it fell the Russian fleet which had been cooped up in its harbor for nearly a year; defeated and driven back in its every attempt to escape; its flag-s.h.i.+p, the "Petropavlovsk," sunk by a mine on April 13, 1904, carrying down Admiral Makaroff and nearly all its crew; the remnant of the fleet being finally sunk or otherwise disabled to save them from capture on the surrender of Port Arthur to the besieging forces.

Such, in very brief epitome, were the leading features of the conflict on land and its earlier events on the sea. We must now return to the great naval battle spoken of above, which calls for detailed description alike from its being the closing struggle of the contest and from its extraordinary character as a phenomenal event in maritime war.

The loss of the naval strength of Russia in eastern waters led to a desperate effort to retrieve the disaster, by sending from the Baltic every war-s.h.i.+p that could be got ready, with the hope that a strong fleet on the open waters of the east would enable Russia to regain its prestige as a naval power and deal a deadly blow at its foe, by closing the waters upon the possession of which the islanders depended for the support of their armies in Manchuria.

This supplementary fleet, under Admiral Rojestvensky, set sail from the port of Libau on October 16, 1904, beginning its career inauspiciously by firing impulsively on some English fis.h.i.+ng-boats on the 21st, with the impression that these were j.a.panese scouts. This hasty act threatened to embroil Russia with another foe, the ally of j.a.pan, but it pa.s.sed off with no serious results.

Entering the Mediterranean and pa.s.sing through the Suez Ca.n.a.l, the fine fleet under Rojestvensky, nearly sixty vessels strong, loitered on its way with wearisome deliberation, dallying for a protracted interval in the waters of the Indian Ocean and not pa.s.sing Singapore on its journey north till April 12. It looked almost as if its commander feared the task before him, six months having now pa.s.sed since it left the Baltic on its very deliberate cruise.

The second Russian squadron, under Admiral Nebogatoff, did not pa.s.s Singapore until May 5, it being the 13th before the two squadrons met and combined. On the 22d they were seen in the waters of the Philippines heading northward. The news of this, flashed by cable from the far east to the far west, put Europe and America on the _qui vive_, in eager antic.i.p.ation of startling events quickly to follow.

Meanwhile where was Admiral Togo and his fleet? For months he had been engaged in the work of bottling up the Russian squadron at Port Arthur.

Since the fall of the latter place and the destruction of the war-s.h.i.+ps in its harbor he had been lying in wait for the slow-coming Baltic fleet, doubtless making every preparation for the desperate struggle before him, but doing this in so silent and secret a method that the world outside knew next to nothing of what was going on. The astute authorities of j.a.pan had no fancy for heralding their work to the world, and not a hint of the movements or whereabouts of the fleet reached men's ears.

As the days pa.s.sed on and the Russian s.h.i.+ps steamed still northward, the anxious curiosity as to the location of the j.a.panese fleet grew painfully intense. The expected intention to waylay Rojestvensky in the southern straits had not been realized, and as the Russians left the Philippines in their rear, the question, Where is Togo? grew more insistent still. With extraordinary skill he had lain long in ambush, not a whisper as to the location of his fleet being permitted to make its way to the western world; and when Rojestvensky ventured into the yawning jaws of the Korean Strait he was in utter ignorance of the lurking-place of his grimly waiting foes.

Before Rojestvensky lay two routes to choose between, the more direct one to Vladivostok through the narrow Korean Strait, or the longer one eastward of the great island of Honshu. Which he would take was in doubt and in which Togo awaited him no one knew. The skilled admiral of j.a.pan kept his counsel well, doubtless satisfied in his own mind that the Russians would follow the more direct route, and quietly but watchfully awaiting their approach.

It was on May 22, as we have said, that the Russian fleet appeared off the Philippines, the greatest naval force that the mighty Muscovite empire had ever sent to sea, the utmost it could muster after its terrible losses at Port Arthur. Five days afterwards, on the morning of Sat.u.r.day, May 27, this proud array of men-of-war steamed into the open throat of the Straits of Korea, steering for victory and Vladivostok. On the morning of Monday, the 29th, a few battered fragments of this grand fleet were fleeing for life from their swift pursuers. The remainder lay, with their drowned crews, on the sea-bottom, or were being taken into the ports of victorious j.a.pan. In those two days had been fought to a finish the greatest naval battle of recent times, and j.a.pan had won the position of one of the leading naval powers of the world.

On that Sat.u.r.day morning no dream of such a destiny troubled the souls of those in the Russian fleet. They were pa.s.sing into the throat of the channel between j.a.pan and Korea, but as yet no sign of a foeman had appeared, and it may be that numbers on board the fleet were disappointed, for doubtless the hope of battle and victory filled many ardent souls on the Russian s.h.i.+ps. The sun rose on the new day and sent its level beams across the seas, on which as yet no hostile s.h.i.+p had appeared. The billowing waters spread broad and open before them and it began to look as if those who hoped for a fight would be disappointed, those who desired a clear sea and an open pa.s.sage would be gratified.

No sails were visible on the waters except those of small craft, which scudded hastily for sh.o.r.e on seeing the great array of war-s.h.i.+ps on the horizon. Fis.h.i.+ng-craft most of these, though doubtless among them were the scout-boats which the watchful Togo had on patrol with orders to signal the approach of the enemy's fleet. But as the day moved on the scene changed. A great s.h.i.+p loomed up, steering into the channel, then another and another, the vanguard of a battle-fleet, steaming straight southward. All doubt vanished. Togo had sprung from his ambush and the battle was at hand.

It was a rough sea, and the coming vessels dashed through heavy waves as they drove onward to the fray. From the flag-s.h.i.+p of the fleet of j.a.pan streamed the admiral's signal, not unlike the famous signal of Nelson at Trafalgar, "The defense of our empire depends upon this action. You are expected to do your utmost."

Northward drove the Russians, drawn up in double column. The day moved on until noon was pa.s.sed and the hour of two was reached. A few minutes later the first shots came from the foremost Russian s.h.i.+ps. They fell short and the j.a.panese waited until they came nearer before replying.

Then the roar of artillery began and from both sides came a hail of shot and sh.e.l.l, thundering on opposing hulls or rending the water into foam.

From two o'clock on Sat.u.r.day afternoon until two o'clock on Sunday morning that iron storm kept on with little intermission, the huge twelve-inch guns sending their monstrous sh.e.l.ls hurtling through the air, the smaller guns raining projectiles on battle-s.h.i.+ps and cruisers, until it seemed as if nothing that floated could live through that terrible storm.