"Where should I go?" he replied, calmly looking away.
"Where the rest have gone," suggested some one.
"The jigits have gone to fight with the Russians, and I am an old man."
"Aren't you afraid of the Russians?"
"What will the Russians do to me? I am an old man," he repeated, carelessly glancing at the circle surrounding him.
On the way back, I saw this old man without a hat, with his hands still tied, jolting behind a mounted Cossack, and he was looking about him with the same expression of unconcern. He was necessary in an exchange of prisoners.
I went to the staircase, and crept up to where the captain was.
"Not many of the enemy, it seems," I said to him, wishing to obtain his opinion about the affair.
"The enemy," he repeated with surprise, "there weren't any at all. Do you call these enemies?... Here when evening comes, you will see how we shall retreat; you will see how they will go with us! Won't they show themselves there?" he added, pointing with his pipe to the forest which we had passed in the morning.
"What is that?" I asked anxiously, interrupting the captain, and drawing his attention to some Don Cossacks who were grouped around some one not far from us.