"The highest throw!"
"Colonel von Brenda has won!"
"The woman is mine!" cried Feodor, his countenance beaming with joy.
His comrades looked at him with astonishment. "A woman! How do you know beforehand that it is a woman?"
Feodor pointed silently to the back part of the room. There stood the
Cossacks, next to the litter, waiting in solemn silence to be noticed.
"A woman! Yes, by Heavens! it is a woman," cried the officers. And, with boisterous laughter, they rushed toward the Cossacks.
"And where did you pick her up?" asked Major von Fritsch.
"Don't know," answered one of the Cossacks. "We crept along a wall, and when we had climbed to the top, we saw a garden. We got down slowly and carefully, and waited behind the trees, to see if any one would come down the long avenue. We did not have long to wait before this lady came by herself. We rushed on her, and all her struggles, of course, went for nothing. Luckily for her and us, she fainted, for if she had cried out, some one, perhaps, might have come, and then we would have been obliged to gag her."
The officers laughed. "Well," said the major, "Colonel Feodor can stop her mouth now with kisses." In the mean while, Lieutenant Matusch threw the Cossacks a few copper coins, and drove them out of the room, with scornful words of abuse.
"And now let us see what we have won," cried the officers, rushing to the litter. They were in the act of raising the cloth which concealed the figure, but Feodor stepped forward with determined countenance and flashing eyes.