But the Cossacks did not seem inclined to permit their prisoner any further private conversation.
“Be off with you, young fellow!” one of them exclaimed to the supposed page; “this is a spy, who is to be shot on the spot; and no one is allowed to speak to him.”
He made a movement as though with a slight motion of his powerful fist to thrust the slender lithe figure aside, when Georgi fearlessly pushed back his arm and glared at him with flashing eyes.
“Hold your blasphemous tongue, you liar! You are a thousand times more of a spy than this gentleman. If you do not leave go of him at once, you will have a knouting that you will not forget until the end of your life!”
The Cossacks looked at him and laughed. It was only the handsome face and the aristocratic bearing of the bold young fellow that prevented their seizing him.
“Take care, little fellow, that you do not first get the stick,” one of them said good-humouredly; “and be off with you, before we, by accident, crush you between our finger and thumb.”
“Go now, Georgi,” Heideck now said, in his turn, on perceiving that the Circassian was not inclined to obey their orders; “if your master is near by, go and tell him that I am about to be shot against all the rules of international law. But tell him to make haste, if he wants to see me again alive; for it looks as though his comrades intend to make short work of me.”
He did not doubt that the beautiful, hot-blooded daughter of the mountains had completely understood him. At all events he saw how she suddenly turned like a flash of lightning, and with the lithe rapidity of a slender lizard threaded her way through the crowd of rough soldiers.
A new hope awoke in Heideck’s breast, and he felt himself once more fettered in a thousand bonds to life, which he just before thought he had entirely parted from. He endeavoured to walk more slowly, in order to gain time. But the Cossacks, who had until now treated him with a certain amount of consideration, appeared to have become irritated by the scene with the page, for one of them urged the prisoner in commanding tones to greater haste, while the other raised his fist in his face with a menacing gesture.
Perhaps he would even have struck him; but the German officer looked into his face with such a proud, commanding glance that he let his raised arm sink to his side. The sullen-looking fellow felt at once that he was not here dealing with an ordinary spy, and from this moment neither curses nor abuse passed his lips.