"Only as I told you."
Then he went back into the house for a moment, saying he would speak to Devinsky about it. I saw the latter change colour when he received the police report and he made a gesture of seeming repudiation, lifting his hands and shrugging his shoulders. After that he threw me a malicious look from his angry evil face that almost made me clamber down from the saddle to try and have a reckoning with him there and then.
"When I'm out of this, I'll hunt you out," I cried, between my teeth.
"When!" he answered: and the sneer in which he shewed his teeth as he uttered the word, was in my eyes for half that long, wild ride.
The police leader kept his word; and we rode at a hard gallop nearly all the way, the whole country side turning out as we thundered by.
The man would not say a word to me on the journey, except that he had been ordered to hold no communication at all with me; and thus I did not know where they were taking me, or whether I was arrested or rescued, until we drew rein at the Police head-quarters in Moscow and I was ushered straight into the presence of Prince Bilbassoff, all dirty, dishevelled, bruised, and travel-stained as I was.
He rose and met me, holding out his hand.
"My dear Lieutenant, you are really giving me an unconscionable amount of trouble. As much, indeed, as if you were already a member of my family."
"What does all this mean?" I asked. "Am I arrested?"
"What an impatient fellow you are! It will all come in time," he returned, with an indescribable blending of good nature and suggestive threat. "Is this all the thanks one gets for rescuing you from what, judging by your appearance, has been a very ugly mess. This harum-scarum business will really have to stop—when you marry." He seemed almost to laugh behind his grizzled moustache in the pause that emphasised the last three words.