Immediately a party of Russian hussars surrounded us with awful oaths.
"Get out, devil's gossip!" a Quartermaster with thick moustachios said to me.
"We'll give you a bath, you and your good woman!"
I got out of the "kibitka," and asked to be taken before the authorities.
Seeing I was an officer, the men ceased swearing, and the Quartermaster took me to the Major's.
Savéliitch followed me, grumbling—
"That's fun—gossip of the Tzar!—out of the frying-pan into the fire! Oh, Lord! how will it all end?"
The "kibitka" followed at a walk. In five minutes we reached a little house, brilliantly lit up. The Quartermaster left me under the guard, and went in to announce his capture.
He returned almost directly, and told me "his high mightiness,"[67] had not time to see me, and that he had bid me be taken to prison, and that my good woman be brought before him.
"What does it all mean?" I cried, furiously; "is he gone mad?"