A general laugh followed this retort, then silence fell over the group, while Féron hammered away at his task, and most of the others began to doze in their places. When at last he held up triumphantly, in proof of his skill, a finely-formed branding-iron with the letter N upon it, his companions were far too sleepy to give him the applause he expected.
One hour—two hours passed away. All were sleeping now, even the sentinels Seppel had placed outside as a matter of form. The village of Nicolofsky was as still as it was wont to be in the noon of a midsummer night. If a sound of weeping and lamentation came, softened by distance, from the adjacent birch-wood, it failed to disturb the sleepers. But the short summer night was soon over, and the dawn began to creep in, cold and gray.
Its first faint light fell upon the figure of a mujik, who traversed, with stealthy, silent footsteps, the deserted street of his native village. As he passed the church he noticed that the door had been forced open—though it was again roughly secured on the outside. He removed the fastening and looked in. The spirit of wanton outrage, only too common amongst the French soldiery, had made Seppel choose that sacred place as a stable for his horse, and the animal was eating corn out of a consecrated vessel placed upon the altar.[24] Michael Ivanovitch ground his teeth, and his dark cheek flushed ominously; but he passed on, for his heart was full of a great, deep anguish, before which every other emotion paled and faded.
That which, at the risk of his life, he had come to fetch, was not in the desecrated church. It had to be sought for in the very place where most of the French soldiers had taken up their quarters for the night—the cottage of Pope Nikita. The door of the cottage was half open, and he saw that the floor was covered with sleeping forms clad in the blue tunic of the French infantry. What matter to him? Blotting out that sight, he saw the wistful, longing look in the dying eyes of the girl he loved, and, before him, the sacred picture her faltering accents had entreated him to bring to her. Thank God, there it hung yet—on the cottage wall, in the right-hand corner. Could he tread amongst those sleepers without awakening them, and reach it?
His step was noiseless as the footfall of the desert panther, and the French were weary with marching, and most of them heavy with vodka. He had grasped his prize—he stood with his hand on its frame, and a momentary throb of triumph in his sorrowful heart, when suddenly a head was raised; some one more wakeful than the rest had seen the intruder. In an instant the alarm was given, and the whole group were on their feet; in another, a dozen strong hands were laid at once upon Michael Ivanovitch.
He struggled desperately, but what could one man do against a dozen armed with swords and bayonets? He would have been cut down almost immediately, had not Seppel, very sensibly, called upon his men to spare his life and secure him as a prisoner. “He may serve for a guide, or at least give us some information,” he said. Then he summoned the Pole to act as interpreter, taking the precaution to make another man—Féron it happened to be—stand before the prisoner with his loaded musket pointed at his breast. “He looks dangerous,” he observed.
There was not much to be read in Michael’s stolid, determined face, as the light of the early morning shone upon it. He had placed the sacred picture in the breast of his caftan; but seeing the musket, he took it out and laid it on the table. “They shall not harm that, at all events,” he thought.
“Tell him,” said Seppel to the Pole, “that if he fails to satisfy us, we will shoot him; but that if he behaves well, we will spare his life.”
The Pole interpreted, and Michael answered coolly, “Nitshevo.”
“That means,” the Pole explained, “‘It is no matter. I do not care.’”