'Take him to the general,' I said to the sergeant.

'Your honour, your honour!' the Jew shrieked in a voice of despair. 'I
am not guilty... not guilty.... Tell him to let me go, tell him...'

'His Excellency will decide about that,' said Siliavka. 'Come along.'

'Your honour!' the Jew shrieked after me--'tell him! have mercy!'

His shriek tortured me; I hastened my pace. Our general was a man of
German extraction, honest and good-hearted, but strict in his adherence
to military discipline. I went into the little house that had been
hastily put up for him, and in a few words explained the reason of my
visit. I knew the severity of the military regulations, and so I did not
even pronounce the word 'spy,' but tried to put the whole affair before
him as something quite trifling and not worth attention. But, unhappily
for Girshel, the general put doing his duty higher than pity.

'You, young man,' he said to me in his broken Russian, 'inexperienced
are. You in military matters yet inexperienced are. The matter, of which
you to me reported have, is important, very important.... And where is
this man who taken was? this Jew? where is he?'

I went out and told them to bring in the Jew. They brought in the Jew.
The wretched creature could scarcely stand up.

'Yes,' pronounced the general, turning to me; 'and where's the plan
which on this man found was?'