The people stopped in the street, and each one saluted us, bowing low. Pugatchéf bent his head right and left.
In a moment we were out of the village and were taking our course over a well-marked road. What I felt may be easily imagined. In a few hours I should see again her whom I had thought lost to me for ever. I imagined to myself the moment of our reunion, but I also thought of the man in whose hands lay my destiny, and whom a strange concourse of events bound to me by a mysterious link.
I recalled the rough cruelty and bloody habits of him who was disposed to prove the defender of my love. Pugatchéf did not know she was the daughter of Captain Mironoff; Chvabrine, driven to bay, was capable of telling him all, and Pugatchéf might learn the truth in other ways. Then, what would become of Marya? At this thought a shudder ran through my body, and my hair seemed to stand on end.
All at once Pugatchéf broke upon my reflections.
"What does your lordship," said he, "deign to think about?"
"How can you expect me to be thinking?" replied I. "I am an officer and a gentleman; but yesterday I was waging war with you, and now I am travelling with you in the same carriage, and the whole happiness of my life depends on you."
"What," said Pugatchéf, "are you afraid?"
I made reply that having already received my life at his hands, I trusted not merely in his good nature but in his help.
"And you are right—'fore God, you are right," resumed the usurper; "you saw that my merry men looked askance at you. Even to-day the little old man wanted to prove indubitably to me that you were a spy, and should be put to the torture and hung. But I would not agree," added he, lowering his voice, lest Savéliitch and the Tartar should hear him, "because I bore in mind your glass of wine and your 'touloup.' You see clearly that I am not bloodthirsty, as your comrades would make out."
Remembering the taking of Fort Bélogorsk, I did not think wise to contradict him, and I said nothing.