Then he invited me again and again to enter his service, but I told him
I had sworn fidelity to the crown; and finally he let me go, saying:
"Either entirely punish or entirely pardon. Tell the officers at
Orenburg they may expect me in a week."

It hurt me to leave Marya behind, especially as Pugatchéf had made
Chvabrine commandant of the fort, but there was no help for it. Father
Garassim and his wife bade me good-bye. "Except you, poor Marya has no
longer any protector or comforter," said the priest's wife.

At Orenburg I was in safety, but the town was soon besieged, and I could
not persuade the general to sally out and attack the rebels. All through
those dreary weeks of the siege I was wondering anxiously about Marya,
and then one day when we had been driving off a party of cossacks, one
of the rebels, whom I recognised a former soldier at Bélogorsk, lingered
to give me a letter. It was from Marya, and she told me that she was now
in the house of Chvabrine, who threatened to kill her or hand her over
to the robber camp if she did not marry him, and that she had but three
days left before her fate would be sealed. Death would be easier, she
said, than to be the wife of a man like Chvabrine.

I rushed off at once to the general, and implored him to give me a
battalion of soldiers, and let me march on Bélogorsk; but the general
only shook his head, and said the expedition was unreasonable.

I decided to go alone and appeal to Pugatchéf, but the faithful
Savélütch insisted on accompanying me, and together we arrived at the
rebel camp.