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Updated: May 20, 2025
And old Batavsky had learned to love him during the time. But as his excitement over the death of Prince Mastowix subsided he became more and more rational. His whole intent now seemed to be to teach Barnwell the language, and then to confide to him not only the story of his eventful life, but the pith of it, which covered a great secret.
The surgeon took quite a fancy to him, and did all he could to teach him the Russian language, so that he might be more useful. But not having the time to devote, he sent him to an old man by the name of Batavsky, who spoke both English and Russian. "He will teach you if he likes you, but if not he will not speak a word," said he. "Who and what is he?" asked Barnwell.
But there was something about the old lunatic which attracted the young American, and there seemed to be a counter attraction between them. "And the surgeon wishes me to teach you the Russian language, does he?" asked old Batavsky, reclining on his miserable couch. "Yes, sir, if you will be so good," replied Barnwell, politely. "So good!" "That is what he said, sir." "You are English, eh?"
But his anxiety was hardly to be mastered, for he wanted a few more words with Batavsky regarding the solution of the diagram he had given him, not knowing whether he would be alive when he might see him next. What new thoughts crowded themselves into his mind now! And although his desire to escape was no greater than ever, yet the possibilities that would now attend it were overwhelming, almost.
And the young exile had also learned to have a most profound respect for Batavsky, whom he found to be a highly educated man of more than ordinary ability, and how he could be thus consigned to such a dreadful place for life was more than he could understand, knowing but little of the dark deeds and ways of Russian tyrants.
Often and often he wished that he but possessed the means which so many claim nowadays of communicating with the departed, for the feeling grew upon him so that he could not resist its influence. "Batavsky!" he said one day, involuntarily, and the echo of the word from half a dozen peaks and crags so startled him that he did not try it again.
He was indeed a changed man, and the governor did not fail to notice it, as did others who noticed him. Some of the old hospital inmates whom he had abused at various times, as he had the dead Batavsky, said among themselves that the spirits of his dead victims were haunting him, which was pretty nearly the truth.
"You shall be obeyed, sir," said Barnwell, hurrying from the room, glad to carry out such an order in the dead old exile's behalf. It was a mournful pleasure to William Barnwell to be able to place the body of poor old Batavsky in a respectable coffin and see it given a Christian burial, instead of being thrown, like hundreds of others, into a ravine, for the wolves to devour and fight over.
So he began with the story, first with his meeting Zobriskie on the steamer, and so on until he was landed in Siberia. Batavsky listened with the utmost attention, and at points showed much excitement, trembling violently and scarcely able to restrain himself. "And the villain Mastowix had become a Nihilist?" said he. "It would seem so, sir."
But for some reason or other, the last of the echoes was the loudest, and the name came back to him as clearly as he had spoken it, from a hill of verdureless rocks some two thousand yards distant: "Batavsky!" "Goodness, how distinct!" he mused. "But why more distinct from that inaccessible hill than from the others? Was it the work of ah, pshaw!
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