'But how can I?'...
'Come with me, and let us find the thief.'
'But where shall we go?'
'We'll go to the fairs, the highways and by-ways, to the horse-stealers, to towns and villages and hamlets--everywhere, everywhere! And don't trouble about money; I've come into a fortune, brother! I'll spend my last farthing, but I'll get my darling back! And he shan't escape us, our enemy, the Cossack! Where he goes we'll go! If he's hidden in the earth we'll follow him! If he's gone to the devil, we'll follow him to Satan himself!'
'Oh, why to Satan?' observed the Jew; 'we can do without him.'
'Leyba!' Tchertop-hanov went on; 'Leyba, though you're a Jew, and your creed's an accursed one, you've a soul better than many a Christian soul! Have pity on me! I can't go alone; alone I can never carry the thing through. I'm a hot-headed fellow, but you've a brain--a brain worth its weight in gold! Your race are like that; you succeed in everything without being taught! You're wondering, perhaps, where I could have got the money? Come into my room--I'll show you all the money. You may take it, you may take the cross off my neck, only give me back Malek-Adel; give him me back again!'
Tchertop-hanov was shivering as if he were in a fever; the sweat rolled down his face in drops, and, mingling with his tears, was lost in his moustaches. He pressed Leyba's hands, he besought him, he almost kissed him.... He was in a sort of delirium. The Jew tried to object, to declare that it was utterly impossible for him to get away; that he had business.... It was useless! Tchertop-hanov would not even hear anything. There was no help for it; the poor Jew consented.
The next day Tchertop-hanov set out from Bezsonovo in a peasant cart, with Leyba. The Jew wore a somewhat troubled aspect; he held on to the rail with one hand, while all his withered figure bounded up and down on the jolting seat; the other hand he held pressed to his bosom, where lay a packet of notes wrapped up in newspaper. Tchertop-hanov sat like a statue, only moving his eyes about him, and drawing in deep breaths; in his sash there was stuck a dagger.
'There, the miscreant who has parted us must look out for himself now!' he muttered, as they drove out on the high-road.
His house he left in the charge of Perfishka and an old cook, a deaf old peasant woman, whom he took care of out of compassion.