The general looked furious. Jack quietly continued:
"But you are making a mistake—you are treating me as you would a Russian and an official. I am merely a brigand—but we Chunchuses have our code. Dirty though he is, General Bekovitch, the man you are bound to has cleaner hands than you: he at least is an honest man according to his lights. It is he who should complain of contamination."
Bekovitch quivered with rage, but gulping down the indiscreet words his anger prompted he returned to the point.
"I could make you a rich man. I said a thousand dollars; come, I will make it two thousand. It will buy you a pardon, and an official post as well. Batiushki! no brigand ever had such a chance."
Jack laughed.
"We have our code, General Bekovitch, I repeat. There are some things bribery cannot effect. Your release just now is one of them. But for bribery you would not be here."
The general stared.
"What do you mean?"
"It is all very simple. If the Pole Sowinski yonder had not bribed you, General Bekovitch, you would not have conspired against Mr. Brown at Moukden, and you would not have needed to deport his son. If you had not deported his son, his son would not still be in Manchuria; and if he had not been in Manchuria he could not have captured you, General Bekovitch, and you need not have attempted to bribe him."
The general stared incredulously at the speaker. Then it was as though the Cossack uniform dropped away; as though the young man before him became again the lad he had been nine months before. The Russian recognized him at last, and his jaw fell.