The lads asked for twelve hours before giving a final answer, and then, having shared the Pole's rough meal, they chatted with him for a long time upon the progress and chances of the insurrection. The Polish leader told them that there were a score of bands like his own in the forests; but he admitted that he saw but little hope of final success unless Russia were completely crippled in the war with England and France.

"But," he said, "we in Poland do not rise only when we consider success possible. We take up arms when we are goaded to it. When some act of Russian tyranny more gross and brutal than usual goads us to desperation, we take up arms to kill and to die. You know not the awful persecution to which we Poles are exposed. Whole villages are destroyed, and the inhabitants banished to Siberia; our young men are taken and compelled to serve in the Russian army. Scores are shot down, after a mockery of a trial, on the pretence of discontent with Russian rule. Women, ay, and ladies, are publicly flogged. Priests are massacred, our churches closed, our very language proscribed. Death is a thousand times preferable to the living torture we undergo, and when we at last rise, it is vengeance and death that we seek rather than with any thought of finally freeing Poland from her oppressors. And now," he said, "you will excuse me if I suggest that we follow the example of my comrades, and turn off to sleep. We have marched fifty miles since yesterday evening, and shall be off before daybreak to-morrow."