"I hope he will treat me with courtesy," said I, "and remember that I am a commissioned officer."
"Why do you doubt him?" asked Anitchoff, with a quiet smile.
"I—I don't like the expression of his eyes."
"They are as keen as those of a Tartar; but, then, he has Tartar blood in him, for his mother was a woman of the middle Kirghis hordes, lately added to our empire."
"Are they remarkable for a curious expression of eye?"
"Yes; any Tartar can discern a single Russian horseman at a quarter of the distance that a Russian will discover a whole troop of Tartars, even with lances uplifted; hence they make our best vedettes."
I now heard complete details of the defeat of twenty thousand Russians at Khutor-Mackenzie; and that, on the morning of the 26th September, Balaclava had been taken, that its safe and secluded harbour was now full of our war ships and transports, and that already our army was on the heights above Sebastopol.
And so, while the great game, on which the eyes of all the world were turned, was being played by my noble comrades, I—the victim of treachery, ignorant alike of my fate and of the future—was to be marched towards the desert plains of Yekaterinoslav, in the custody of an unscrupulous ruffian like Trebitski, parooschick of the Tchernimoski Cossacks; one who knew as little about the position or feelings of a British officer as he did about those of the Great Llama.
On my bed that night I tossed restlessly to and fro, revolving a hundred plans for escape, but could decide on none. Bribery will achieve anything in Russia; but I had no money. I was also without weapons, a horse, or knowledge of the language. I determined, however, to look well about me; to study a map of the Crimea if I could find one; to act surely, warily, and resolutely; and to take the first opportunity of escaping, even if I should be shot down in the attempt. I was all the more free to make this essay, that, as yet, not a word had been spoken either of parole or exchange by the gloomy General Baur, or 'his more genial aide-de-camp.
By dawn next morning, the hoarse roll of the wooden drums summoned the garrison of Kourouk to witness the execution of the deserter; and by the time I came forth, as a spectator, the battalion of the 45th was under arms, formed in three sides of a hollow square, facing inwards; all silent, motionless as statues, closely ranked in their grey capotes and flat blue caps, with rifles shouldered and bayonets fixed.