“He shall have a chance to save his life. We’ll have swords. But, mind, the fight is to be to the death. No stopping for a trickle of blood!”
“That’s the spirit I like,” cried Zoiloff bluntly; and then we discussed the plan I had suggested. He told me where I could sleep and he and Spernow could find me in the morning.
“I should be off at once if I were you—and, mind, get a night’s rest. You’ll need all your skill, even if we succeed in bringing him up to the scratch.”
“I’ll go the moment Spernow arrives.”
“Then take my advice. Let your people have a horse saddled at once and kept in readiness close to some back way out. I know these Russian dodges.”
I adopted the suggestion at once, and, sending for my head groom, Markov, told him to saddle my horse and his, where to station himself, and to be prepared to be away with me for the night; and, lastly, to hold his tongue. After that I changed hurriedly into an undress uniform, got together the one or two things I should need, and joined Zoiloff.
“I don’t like this long wait,” he said impatiently. “I seem to smell something wrong. Why do they keep Spernow like this? I should go, Count, if I were you.”
“I can’t go till I know the man’s making a show of fighting, at any rate.”
“Picket one or two of our fellows, then, to give us warning. The house may be surrounded before we know anything has happened.”
“It isn’t necessary. The place is like a rabbit-warren; there’s an underground passage that lets out a hundred yards away, and it’s there I’ve told the man to have the horses. Half a regiment couldn’t keep me in if I wanted to get out.”