This speech put new life into me. It also touched the hearts of many in the crowd.
Petrukhin went up, took a place beside Peter and myself, and declared:
“You will shoot me, too, before you execute an innocent, suffering woman!”
The soldiers were now divided. Some shouted, “Let’s shoot her and make an end of this squabble! What’s the use of arguments?”
Others were more human. “She is not of the bourgeoisie, but a common peasant like ourselves,” they argued. “And she does not understand politics. Perhaps she really was going to seek a cure. She was not captured, but came to us of her own accord, we must not forget that.”
For some time the place was transformed into a debating-ground. It was a strange scene for a debate. There were the hundreds of bodies scattered round us. There were the twenty of us in our under-garments awaiting death. Of the twenty only I had a chance for life. The remaining nineteen held themselves stoically erect. No hope stirred within them. No miracle could save them. And amidst all this a hundred Russian soldiers, a quarter of an hour before all savages, now half of them with a spark of humanity in their breasts, were debating!
The members of the committee finally recovered their wits and took charge of the situation. Turning to Pugatchov, they declared:
“Now we have an order here from the Commander-in-Chief, and it shall be obeyed. We are going to take her away.”
They closed about me and I was marched out of the line and off the field. Pugatchov was in a white rage, raving like a madman, grinding his teeth. As we walked away, his brutal voice roared:
“Fire at the knees!”