“What is that?” asked Michael. “By the Holy Saints! The soldiers of the Ataman have come upon us!”
He sprang up and went to the window, where he put his eye to the hole in the frost, and looked out. Katerin pressed close to him.
“Soldiers at the gate!” whispered Michael, and as he stood staring at his daughter, they heard Wassili shouting in the hall below.
“Master! Master!”
Katerin crossed herself and bowed her head in the direction of the icon as she ran to the door and called down to Wassili, asking what it was that he wanted.
“The soldiers are outside—pounding to get in!”
“Then let them in,” commanded Katerin. “We cannot fight them.” She ran back across the room to the window and looked down to the court—she could see the tops of the tall Cossack caps over the upper edge of the paling. There were at least a dozen of them, and above them here and there was the glittering point of a bayonet.
“We are in God’s hands!” cried Katerin.
“We shall know what fate holds for us now,” said her father, drawing up toward the stove. “We have been in doubt long enough. It was the smoke from our chimney which drew them, without doubt.”
“They will want the money,” said Katerin. “It may as well go to them—enough to stop their greed.”