All carried in their girdles a dagger or knife and double brace of pistols. They seemed to be chiefly soldiers of the Regiment of Valikolutz: and his sudden appearance among them, in the full uniform of the Smolensko Infantry, evidently excited, if it did not alarm them; for discipline becomes so completely a habit—a second nature; and, as if the presence of an epaulette rendered them uneasy, they all withdrew into the back or more obscure portion of the cavern, leaving him and their two leaders together.
"Oh! Basil—Usakoff—my friends, if indeed I may yet dare to call you so, and live," said Balgonie, in a voice that was broken by emotion, "for what rash and dreadful purpose do I find you and these unfortunate fellows here?"
"You, and all Russia too, shall learn ere long," replied Mierowitz calmly and sternly, yet with a grave and noble air, with which his coarse canvas caftan assorted oddly.
"And poor Natalie!" exclaimed Balgonie, in a tone of grief and reproach; "have you no pity for her?"
"Until Natalie informed me, I knew not, my friend, Carl Ivanovitch, that you were the bearer of that secret dispatch, which might have cost you limb or life, when it was too late to arrest those I had set upon your track."
"Well, certainly, I was not much indebted to the good offices of your rogue, Podatchkine."
"The Corporal's orders were simply to abstract the document, and bring it to me; not to slay its bearer, unless such a catastrophe became unavoidable."
"He fell into his own snare—a dark and deadly one."
"Happily you escaped it; and I have saved two hundred silver roubles, for the service of the Emperor."
"Who do you mean?" asked Balgonie, in a whisper.