‘It is indeed I, Vera,’ said I joyously. ‘I have followed you with difficulty, but I have found you at last.’
‘Oh!’ cried she from within, ‘it sounds like Chelminsky; but dare I open and risk it? Remember, if it is you, Mazeppa, you devil, that if you touch me you die—I swear it again and again.’
‘How shall I prove it to you that I am I?’ said I in despair. ‘I was watching in Vaiseuk’s hut and saw you carried out by night. Is that proof?’
Then Vera opened the door a little and peeped out, and with a cry of joy she threw it open and fell upon me with tears and embraces, which latter I returned with interest, being the first I had given or received from this modest and splendid maiden.
‘Now, shut yourself up once again, for I shall first settle accounts with Mazeppa,’ said I. ‘In case he should better me, you will be worse off than before!’
‘No, I will see this account settled,’ she said; and when I bade her take her sword or her pistol, or whatsoever it was she had had with her in the room—that with which she threatened to take his life if he should have attempted the door—she told me to my surprise that she had nothing!
‘Threats are good weapons against some foes,’ she said, laughing!
Nevertheless I gave Vera my own dagger, for I liked not that she should be unarmed, in case of accident, and bade her keep it in her bosom.
Then we went to find Mazeppa in his dormése, wherein he slept soundly.
‘Awake, Mazeppa,’ I cried, ‘for I am here!’