"Would it not be better," I said, "to abandon them now, before it is
too late, and have recourse to the clemency of the Empress?"

He smiled bitterly. "No; the time is passed. I shall end as I began.
Who knows?"

Our Tartar was humming a plaintive air; Saveliitch, sound asleep,
swayed from side to side; our kibitka was gliding rapidly over the
winter road. I saw in the distance a village well known to my eyes,
with its palisade and church spire on the steep bank of the river Iaik.
A quarter of an hour after we entered the fortress of Belogorsk.




XII. MARIE.


The kibitka stopped before the Commandant's house. The inhabitants had
recognized the usurper's bells and equipage, and had come out in crowds
to meet him. Alexis, dressed like a Cossack, and bearded like one,
helped the brigand to descend from his kibitka. The sight of me
troubled him, but soon recovering himself, he said: "You are one of
us?" I turned my head away without replying. My heart was wrung when
we entered the room that I know so well, where still upon the wall
hung, like an epitaph, the diploma of the deceased Commandant.
Pougatcheff seated himself upon the same sofa where many a time Ivan
Mironoff had dozed to the hum of his wife's voice. Alexis' own hand
presented the brandy to his chief. Pougatcheff drank a glass and said,
pointing to me: "Offer a glass to his lordship." Alexis approached