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"Which is the Commandant?" asked the usurper. Our Corporal came out of the crowd and pointed to Mironoff. Pougatcheff looked at the old man with a terrible expression, and said to him: "How did you dare to oppose me, your emperor?" The Commandant, weakened by his wound, collected all his energy, and said, in a firm but faint voice: "You are not my emperor; you are a usurper and a brigand."
Brave soldier! no Prussian ball, nor Turkish sabre killed thee, but a vile condemned deserter." "Silence that old sorceress," said Pougatcheff. A young Cossack struck her with his sabre on the head. She fell dead at the foot of the steps. Pougatcheff rode off, all the people following. I stood in the vacant square, unable to collect my thoughts, disturbed by so many terrible emotions.
My friendly relations with Pougatcheff, however, wore a suspicious look. Arriving at Khasan, I found the city almost reduced to ashes. Along the streets there were heaps of calcined material of unroofed walls of houses a proof that Pougatcheff had been there. The fortress was intact. I was taken there and delivered to the officer on duty.
A thick red beard, piercing gray eyes, a nose without nostrils, marks of the searing irons on his forehead and cheeks, gave to his broad face, pitted by small-pox a most fierce expression. He wore a red shirt, a Kirghis robe, and wide Cossack pantaloons. Although wholly pre-occupied by my own feelings, yet this company deeply impressed me. Pougatcheff recalled me to myself quickly.
Thanks to Pougatcheff I had an excellent horse, and I shared my meager pittance with it. I went out every day beyond the ramparts to skirmish with Pougatcheff's advance guards. The rebels had the best of it; they had plenty of food and were well mounted. Our poor cavalry were in no condition to oppose them.
I replied indignantly, that being an officer and a noble, I was incapable of enlisting in the usurper's army, and had never served him in any way. "How is it," said my judge, "that the 'officer and noble' is the only one spared by Pougatcheff? How is it that the 'officer and noble' received presents from the chief rebel, of a horse and a pelisse?
The fort he commanded was only twenty-five versts from ours, so that from hour to hour we might expect an attack from Pougatcheff. My imagination pictured the fate of Marie, and I trembled for her.
The Tartar horses shot off, the bells tinkled, the kibitka flew over the snow. "Stop! stop!" cried a voice I knew too well. "O Peter! do not abandon me in my old age, in the midst of the rob " "Ah, you old owl!" said Pougatcheff, "sit up there in front." "Thanks, Czar, may God give you a long life." The horses set off again. The people in the streets stopped and bowed low, as the usurper passed.
Alexis fumbled in his pockets, and at last said that he had forgotten the key. Pougatcheff kicked the door; the lock yielded, the door opened and we entered. I glanced into the room, and nearly fainted. On the floor, in the coarse dress of a peasant, Marie was seated, pale, thin, her hair in disorder; before her on the floor stood a pitcher of water covered by a piece of bread.
If he does not acknowledge you as Czar he has no justice to get at your hands; if he acknowledge you, why did he stay at Orenbourg with your enemies? Will you not order him to prison, and have a fire lighted there?" The old rascal's logic seemed plausible even to myself. I shuddered when I remembered into whose hands I had fallen. Pougatcheff saw my trouble.
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