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"Deign to read it, and you will see," replied Savéliitch. Pugatchéf took the paper and looked at it a long time with an air of importance. At last he said "You write very illegibly; our lucid eyes cannot make out anything. Where is our Chief Secretary?" A youth in a corporal's uniform ran up to Pugatchéf. "Read it aloud," the usurper said to him, handing him the paper.
Khlopúsha and Béloborodoff said nothing, and exchanged black looks. I felt it was necessary to change the subject of the interview, which might end in a very disagreeable manner for me. Turning toward Pugatchéf, I said to him, smiling "Ah!
"Oh! my father, Petr' Andréjïtch," cried my follower, "don't forsake me in my old age among the rob " "Aha! old owl!" said Pugatchéf, "so God again brings us together. Here, seat yourself in front." "Thanks, Tzar, thanks my own father," replied Savéliitch, taking his seat. "May God give you a hundred years of life for having reassured a poor old man.
"Tzar," he said, in a trembling voice, "Tzar, she is not under restraint; she is in bed in her room." "Take me to her," said the usurper, rising. It was impossible to hesitate. Chvabrine led Pugatchéf to Marya Ivánofna's room. I followed them. Chvabrine stopped on the stairs. "Tzar," said he, "you can constrain me to do as you list, but do not permit a stranger to enter my wife's room."
All the rest of the furniture, the benches, the table, the little washstand jug hung to a cord, the towel on a nail, the oven fork standing up in a corner, the wooden shelf laden with earthen pots, all was just as in any other "izbá. Pugatchéf sat beneath the holy pictures in a red caftan and high cap, his hand on his thigh.
At the end of two hours we had already reached the neighbouring fort, which also belonged to Pugatchéf. We changed horses there. By the alertness with which we were served and the eager zeal of the bearded Cossack whom Pugatchéf had appointed Commandant, I saw that, thanks to the talk of the postillion who had driven us, I was taken for a favourite of the master.
Pugatchef, abandoned by his followers, now fled to the Urals, but soon appeared again with a fresh body of troops. Between the beginning of March and the end of May, 1774, the rebel chief was defeated six or seven times by Michelson, in the end being driven as a fugitive to the Ural Mountains.
"What, my little father, you have already forgotten the drunkard who did you out of your 'touloup' the day of the snowstorm, a hareskin 'touloup, brand new. And he, the rascal, who split all the seams putting it on." I was dumbfounded. The likeness of Pugatchéf to my guide was indeed striking.
Savéliitch lay prostrate at the feet of Pugatchéf. "Oh! my own father!" my poor follower was saying. "What need have you of the death of this noble child? Let him go free, and you will get a good ransom; but for an example and to frighten the rest, let them hang me, an old man!" Pugatchéf gave a signal; I was immediately unbound. "Our father shows you mercy," they said to me.
Pugatchéf asked him some questions on the condition of the fort, on what was said concerning the Tzarina's troops, and other similar subjects. Then suddenly and in an unexpected manner "Tell me, brother," asked he, "who is this young girl you are keeping under watch and ward? Show me her." Chvabrine became pale as death.
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