Why should they? They had
been penned in festering dungeons, where the dead lay, corrupting the
air till living and dead became a diseased mass. They had been knouted
for differences of political opinion. They {110} had been whisked off
at midnight from St. Petersburg--mile after mile, week after week,
month after month, across the snows, with never a word of explanation,
knowing only from the jingle of many bells that other prisoners were in
the long procession. Now their hopes took fire from Hoffman's tales of
Russian plans for fur trade. The path of the trackless sea seems
always to lead to a boundless freedom.
In a word, before they had left Hoffman, they had bound themselves by
oath to try to seize a fur-trading ship to escape across the Pacific.
Stephanow, the common convict, was the one danger. He might play spy
and obtain freedom by betraying all. To prevent this, each man was
required to sign his name to an avowal of the conspirators' aim.
Hoffman was to follow as soon as he could. Meanwhile he kept the
documents, which were written in German; and Benyowsky, the Pole, was
elected chief.
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