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One of the horses pitched forward, shot through the brain, I knew; the other fell upon the first, and I ran forward at all speed, towards the wrecked and overturned droshka. As I ran, I saw an officer in uniform leap from the interior of the droshka, and draw his sword in preparation for my attack, while his yemschik, whip in hand, scrambled from the snow, and assumed a place beside him.
He laughed derisively, for he was not a coward, and he knew that death would be far preferable to the fate that would be his, if he were captured alive. "So! It is my friend Dubravnik, is it?" he said, insolently, but in a tone as cool as though he were greeting me in a ballroom. "You have killed my horses, and my yemschik; why not do the same for me?" I hesitated.
I had two bullets remaining in my revolver; at least I thought so, and I raised it, and pulled the trigger a fourth time, thus placing the yemschik effectually out of that combat, and rendering it impossible for him ever to engage in others; and then, when barely ten feet away from the scoundrelly captain, I leveled the weapon at him and ordered him to throw down his sword.
"With whom are you struggling, Captain Durnief?" I heard a voice say. "Zara!" I exclaimed, before Durnief could reply. "With an assassin who has shot our horses, murdered the yemschik, and who would assassinate you, princess," panted Durnief. "Zara!" I called to her again. "It is I Dubravnik."
"Throw down your sword, or I will certainly kill you!" I commanded him, again. "Kill," he replied, laconically. There was no other way, and I pulled the trigger. There was no report. Durnief did not fall, as the horses, and his yemschik had done. He stood unharmed, for the cartridge was bad, or the chamber of my revolver was unloaded.
Moreover he battled successfully, and before the moon was well up drew rein outside the village of Osterno, to accede at last to the oft-repeated prayer of the driver that he might return to his task. "It is not meet," the man had gruffly said, whenever a short halt was made to change horses, "that a great prince should drive a yemschik."
"I stood for a long time, with the sword pressed against his back, where it would have pierced his heart," she murmured in my ear, while she clung to me. "I wanted to kill him, but I could not do it. Then I found the yemschik's whip, but I had not the strength to strike. Do you wonder why I left the house? The yemschik came to get me. He brought a note, signed by you.
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