"
"Nihilists?" asked Ned eagerly, for he had read something of these
desperate men.
"No, and not anarchists," said Mr. Petrofsky with a sad smile. "Our
party was opposed to violence, and we depended on education to aid our
cause. Then, too, we did all we could in a quiet way to help the poor.
My brother and I invented several life-saving and labor-saving machines
and in this way we incurred the enmity of the rich contractors and
government officials, who made more money the more people they could
have working for them, for they made the people buy their food and
supplies from them.
"But my brother, and I persisted, with the result that we were both
arrested, and, with a number of others were sent to Siberia.
"Of the horrors we endured there I will say nothing. However, you have
probably read much. In the country near which we were quartered there
were many mines, some of salt and some of sulphur. Oh, the horrors of
those mines! Many a poor exile has been lost in the windings of a salt
mine, there to die miserably. And in the sulphur mines many die also,
not from being lost so much as being overcome by stifling gases. It is
terrible! And sometimes they are purposely abandoned by their guides,
for the government wants to get rid of certain exiles.
"But you are interested in platinum.
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