“Do not look at them, little daughter,” said Kirsakoff. “They have disobeyed the rules. Was it cold coming from Irkutsk? And did you bring me many kisses?”
The Governor lifted her out of the sledge and smothered her in his arms. At this moment a Cossack interposed himself between the bootmaker and the Governor, and two soldiers closed in on Peter and his father, their bayonets fixed upon their rifles.
Gorekin held up his hand in a plea to speak once more to the Governor. The bootmaker had dropped his cap, his face showed the agony of his despair, and the tears streamed down his face. His mouth was open and his lips trembled with the chagrin and horror of what had befallen him.
“Excellence! I submit!” he pleaded. “But by the mercy of God, condemn not my son to the prison too!”
One of the Cossacks pushed him back violently so that he spun round and staggered blindly in an effort to keep his footing on the slippery snow. Then he turned with a cry and thrust the Cossack aside, to run after the Governor, hands stretched out in supplication.
“Mercy for my son!” he called after Kirsakoff.
A Cossack’s saber flashed, and Gorekin received its point in the back—once, twice—and with a scream, fell writhing on the snow-packed street before the post-house.
Kirsakoff ran with little Katerin in his arms toward the near-by droshky which was awaiting them. The crowd closed in at once about the stricken bootmaker and his son.
Little Peter fell to his knees beside his father, who had been rudely rolled upon his back by the Cossack with the saber. This Cossack searched hastily through the pockets of the greatcoat of Gorekin. Peter, screaming in terror, supposed that all this was being done to help his father.
The Cossack found the curved leather-knife of Gorekin in a pocket of the dying man’s coat, and flung the knife upon the ground. “He held this knife in his hand!” cried the Cossack. “It is the knife with which he would have killed the Governor!”