At this reminiscence Bernikoff only scowled more deeply; and now the lacerated back of the sufferer was strewed with coarse gunpowder, to which a match was applied. This is technically known as the batogg, and the agony it produced is indescribable.
The culprit was now cast loose, but was still able, according to the slavish usage of the country, to crawl on his hands and knees towards Bernikoff, and he gasped out:—
"Hospodeen—Excellency, I thank you humbly for this most merciful punishment."
"Begone, dog of an Asiatic!" replied the governor, kicking him in the face; "when next you seek to fill your pipe, this will teach you to keep your filthy fingers out of my tobacco pouch."
These were the defenders of their country, the Holy Russia, among whom a wayward fate had cast the Scottish palatine: the blood of the latter boiled within him; but he knew too well that to expostulate would be but to excite suspicion, and to court degradation and the musket. Something, however, in the expression of his face did not escape Bernikoff's keen and angry eyes.
"Ivanovitch Balgonie, a superior can never act unjustly to his inferior," said he sternly; and these words terribly embodied the genuine spirit of the true Russian Tchinnovnik, or noble class. "I am in the service of the state," he added; "and the state is the Czarina!"
Yet this upright Governor, who knouted the poor Cossack for pilfering a pipeful of tobacco, had always a garrison double its actual strength on paper, the pay and rations of the men of straw forming a pleasant addition to his many secret perquisites, while his soldiers starved and frequently begged food from the very prisoners they guarded.
It was neither hospitality nor love of society which had procured the honour of an invitation for Balgonie; but Bernikoff shrewdly suspecting that he might have some loose cash, resolved to possess himself thereof at cards; so barely was a dinner of shee (which is identically Scotch broth), croquettes, with purée of beet-root, beef in the Hussar style, with salad of baked beet-root and biscuits, dismissed, than champagne-cup, and vodka (or corn-brandy) punch became the order of the evening; and Bernikoff, who was a great gourmand, with his face flushed and his uniform open, after signing the cross and bowing thrice to a picture of St. Sergius, sat down to cards with Vlasfief and Tschekin, who were quite as sharp as himself, and with poor simple-hearted Charlie Balgonie, who dreaded to decline, circumstanced as he was on all hands; and who was glad when allowed to quit the table with the loss, he never could understand how, of twenty xervonitz, or pieces worth nine shillings sterling each.
"Now, Vlasfief—'tis you and I; rouge-et-noir!" exclaimed Bernikoff, draining a goblet of vodka punch at a draught.
"I am too weary to play, most excellent Colonel; pray excuse me," urged the Captain, who had lost considerably to his senior also.