"Indeed, summary. How?"
"We don't always keep them on our hands," said he, with a smile that was grimly significant, while he played with the gold tassels of his hussar busby.
"Well, 'twere better to be shot than kept lingering here."
"Oh, you won't be kept here, my friend."
"Where then?"
"In a few days you will probably be sent with a convoy of sick and wounded by the way of Perecop and the desert plains towards Yekaterinoslav."
"I shall escape by the way," said I, doggedly.
"I repeat, my friend, don't think of it, for Trebitski, who will command, does not stand on trifles; and yet," he added, with a smile, "there are two persons who seldom fail in what they attempt—a prisoner and a lover."
"Why?"
"Stendahl, a Russian author, says, 'The lover thinks oftener of obtaining his mistress than the husband does of guarding his wife; the prisoner thinks oftener of escaping from his prison than the gaoler does of keeping him safe within its walls. Therefore, the lover and the prisoner should succeed.' You see," he continued, laughing, "we have some authors in snowy Russia, whatever you Britons may think to the contrary. But here is the general."