“My answer to that—I am dumb,” said Katerin. She sat down near her father, and folded her hands in an attitude of helpless resignation.
“You know of some of the things that have happened here since the Ataman began to rule,” replied Shimilin. “I can tell you that the dumb have been made to speak for Zorogoff. This is a matter that you would do well to consider with great care.”
Michael picked up one of the cards before him, and resumed his game, as if what was being said held no interest for him.
Katerin leaned forward from the bench and looked into the black eyes of the Cossack.
“This is a matter that I have considered,” she said slowly. “I have given thought to it much longer than you suppose—and I have considered that you, who are a Cossack, might even kill Russians by order of a Mongol chief. I am wondering if you have thought of that, Captain Shimilin, and——”
Shimilin sprang to his feet, his face flushed and his eyes menacing.
“Take care what you say about the Ataman!”
Katerin smiled.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I also understand what you seek. It is to have it to say that we insult the Ataman. If calling him a Mongol is an insult, that is his affair—we only speak the truth, and if the truth be against him as he sees it and he resents it, we have nothing to do with that. I am not making little of him for his blood or his race. There have been many great men among his people, and he is of royal line. But it is to you, Captain Shimilin, that I am speaking. My father and I have always been friends of the Cossacks. Now you put a Mongol into power here. Do you expect him to give you what we Russians have always given you? The rank of free men? Even our Czar was Ataman of all the Cossacks. Have you not learned to rule in your own way?”
As Katerin went on, her confidence grew. She saw that there was shame as well as anger in Shimilin.