Wassili held a flaming match forth to Michael. “Master,” said the moujik, as he applied the flame to the cigarette between Michael’s lips, “I am quick with the knife—I can strike a good stroke, and no one will be the wiser, for I can have the body carted into the forest. Then you and the mistress will be free from his danger.”
“If we do well, we can use this man to protect us from the Ataman,” put in Katerin. “Though he seems to be a menace, he may in fact be so twisted to our use that he will be our salvation.”
“A man who is an enemy! Protect us? Are you talking madness, my daughter, or have my wits become addled by age? I shall not allow a man who is my enemy to save me even if he would or could. No, no, I say it—this American—this Russian who calls himself an American—must die. And no time lost in the matter, let me say!”
“But I say you are wrong, father,” insisted Katerin, putting her hands on his knees. “If he does not know who we are, what difference does it make to us or him if he is an enemy. The thing for us to do is to make friends with him—and fool him into the belief——”
“But he will know me!” protested Michael. “You expect him to talk with me—even see me—and not know who I am? That would only be putting our heads into the maw of the lion! I can tell you this, my daughter—I shall strike first, while the advantage lies with me!”
“Truth!” exclaimed Wassili excitedly. “The master speaks truth! And I am the one to attend to the task!”
“But he will not know you,” pleaded Katerin. “He thinks of you as you were years ago, in the days when you were Governor, while now you are an old man in the rags of a peasant, with——”
“Ah, he will know, he will know! We must not trust to ice so thin! I shall not turn my horse loose too soon when danger is over the hill. I may be old, but I have not lost my cunning with my enemies, I hope.”
“You forget that our lives depend upon our deceiving this Peter Petrovitch, my father.”
“I think our lives depend upon his not seeing me till I am ready to strike,” argued Michael. “What would our lives be worth if he were to come in here now and see me? A beggar’s kopeck—the turn of a hand, the call of a quail in the brush! P-fooh! I know!”