"No, madam: while seeking to convey a despatch from Lord Raglan to Marshal Canrobert I lost my way, fell among Cossacks, and am here."
"When my brother arrives--we expect him ere long--we shall be compelled to confide you to his care; meantime you are safe, and here are refreshments, of which you seem sorely in need; and for greater secrecy, Ivan Yourivitch will serve you here."
"Who the deuce can this brother be of whom she talks so much, and where can she have acquired such capital English?" were my surmises as I seated myself at a side-table, and, with old Ivan standing towel in hand at my back, fell à la Cosaque, on the good things before me, with an appetite unimpaired by all that I had undergone. To the elder lady's horror, I omitted previously to cross myself or turn towards the eikon; but fragrant coffee made as only Orientals and Continentals can make it, golden honey from the hills and woods of Yaila, newly-laid eggs, salmon fresh from the Salghir, boar's ham from the forests of Kaffa, and wine from Achmetchet, made a repast fit for the gods--then how much so for a long-famished Briton! While I partook of it the ladies conversed together in a low voice in Russian, seeming to ignore my presence; for though full of natural female curiosity and impatience to question me, they were too well-bred to trouble me just then. Those who have starved as we starved in the Crimea can alone relish and test the comforts of a good meal. You must sleep--or doze--amid the half-frozen mud and ooze of the trenches, or in a cold draughty tent, to know the actual luxury of clean sheets, a soft bed, and cosy pillows. Hence it is, that though accustomed to "rough it" in any fashion and degree, no one so keenly appreciates the warmth, the food, and the genuine comforts of home as the old campaigner, or the weather-worn seaman, who has perhaps doubled "the Horn," and known what it is to hand a half-frozen topsail in a tempestuous night, with his nails half torn out by the roots, as he lay out to windward. Yet when I found myself in quarters so comfortable, hospitable, and splendid, I could not but think regretfully of the regiment, of Phil Caradoc, of Charley Gwynne, and others who were literally starving before the enemy--starving and dying of cold and of hunger!
[CHAPTER XLV.--EVIL TIDINGS.]
I had now time amply to observe and to appreciate that which had impressed me powerfully at first--the wonderful beauty of the lady who protected me, and who spoke English with such marvellous fluency. If the artist's pencil sometimes fails to convey a correct idea of a woman's loveliness--more than all of her expression--a description by mere ink and type can give less than an outline. In stature she was fully five feet seven, full-bosomed and roundly limbed, and yet seemed just past girlhood, in her twentieth or twenty-second year. Her skin was fair, dazzlingly pure as that of any Saxon girl at home; while, by strange contrast, her eyes were singularly dark, the deepest, clearest, and most melting hazel, with soft voluptuous dreamy-looking lids, and long black lashes. Her eyebrows, which were rather straight, were also dark, while the masses of her hair were as golden in hue as ever were those of Lucrezia Borgia; they grew well down upon her forehead, and in the light of the shaded lamp by which she had been reading, ripples of sheen seemed to pass over them like rays of the sun. Her features were very fine, and her ears were white and delicate as if formed of biscuit china, and from them there dangled a pair of the then fashionable Schogoleff earrings of cannon-balls of gold.
Her dress was violet-coloured silk, cut low but square at the neck, with loose open sleeves, trimmed with white lace and ruches of white satin ribbon, and its tint consorted well with the fair purity of her complexion. Every way she was brilliant and picturesque, and seemed one of those women whom a man may rapidly learn to love--yea, and to love passionately--and yet know very little about. Once in a lifetime a man may see such a face and such a figure, and never forget them. The dame, in the red sarafan, was a somewhat plain but pleasant-looking old Muscovite lady, whose angularity of feature and general outline of face reminded me of a good-humoured tom cat; and while playing idly with the leaves of her book, she regarded me with a rather dubious expression of eye; for British prisoners did not quite find themselves so much at home in Kharkoff and elsewhere, nor were they so petted and fêted, as the Russian prisoners were at Lewes, among the grassy downs of Sussex. My repast over, and the massive silver tray removed by Ivan Yourivitch, a conversation was begun by the younger lady saying, a little playfully,
"You must give me your parole of honour, that you will not attempt to leave this place in secret, or without permission."
"From you?"
"From me, yes."
"Did not duty require it of me, I might never seek the permission, but be too happy to be for ever your captive," said I, gallantly; but she only laughed like one who was quite used to that sort of thing, and held up a white hand, saying,