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I looked boldly at Pougatcheff, preparing to repeat the words of my brave comrades, when to my inexpressible astonishment I saw Alexis amongst the rebels. He had had time to cut his hair round, and exchange his uniform for a Cossack cafetan. He approached Pougatcheff and whispered to him. "Let him be hung," said Pougatcheff, not deigning to look at me. A rope was put around my neck.
"Where is our guide?" I asked of Saveliitch. "Here, your lordship," replied a voice from above. I raised my eyes to the loft, and saw a black beard and two sparkling black eyes. "Well, are you cold?" "How could I help being cold in this little cafetan full of holes. What's the use of concealment?
One was an old man frail and bent, remarkable for nothing but a blue riband crossed over his coarse gray cloth cafetan; but I shall never forget his companion. He was tall, of powerful build, and seemed about forty-five.
Suddenly coming from behind a hill, eight versts from the fortress, appeared new groups of horsemen, and soon the whole steppe was covered by men armed with lances and arrows. Amongst them, wearing a scarlet cafetan, sword in hand, could be distinguished a man mounted on a white horse. This was Pougatcheff himself.
But every thing else, the benches, the table, the basin hung up by a cord, the towel on a nail in the wall, the shelf laden with earthen vessels, were exactly the same as in any other cabin. Pougatcheff, wearing his scarlet cafetan and high Cossack cap, with his hand on his hip, sat beneath the sacred pictures common to every Russian abode. Around him stood several of his chiefs.
God has helped us; we have stumbled right upon the hedge of the dwelling. Come out, my lord, quick; come and warm yourself." I descended from the kibitka; the hurricane had not ceased, but it had moderated; sight was useless, it was so dark. The master of the house met us at the door, holding a lantern under the flaps of his long coat, the Cossack cafetan.
It was drawn by two handsome brown mules with leather and copper harness which matched the colour of their shining coats, and was driven by a heavy, smooth-faced Negro in a white turban and an embroidered cafetan of dark blue. The carriage windows were shuttered, and as the black coachman pulled up his mules, he looked neither to the right nor to the left.
Suddenly, shouts announced that the Czar was on the square, awaiting to receive the oaths of the prisoners. Pougatcheff was seated in an arm-chair on the steps of the Commandant's house. He was robed in an elegant Cossack cafetan embroidered on the seams. A high cap of martin-skin, ornamented with gold tassels, covered his brow almost to his flashing eyes. His face seemed to me not unknown.
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