“Have I not served my lord?” he asked humbly.
“So faithfully that I would fain reward you,” I replied; “in France I have a house and lands by the sea; and there you could live and die in peace, under my protection. Will you follow me, Maluta?”
He shivered and looked over his shoulder. In the west the red of sunset trailed upward toward the zenith, in long scarlet feathers; on the wide scene shadows fell.
“Have I not served my lord?” he repeated; “for I owed him my life—for him have I risked it!”
“So you have!” I retorted kindly. I was lying full-length on the grass and I rose now on my elbow; “and I would repay you.”
He fell on his knees. “Then leave me here, O my master,” he whimpered; “here was I born, here have I lived, here, also, will I die. In the strange land I should perish—my heart would be empty. I should never see the great white city again—I should die! Yet, I owe my life to you, O excellency, and if you will it—take it!”
“Saint Denis, you little rogue!” I exclaimed; “do you think I would kill you by taking you away? But what can you do here?”
He knelt meekly, his hands clasped, his eyes rolled up, the picture of a saint, though he was as arrant a little knave as ever lived, when he wanted to be.
“Here I can live,” he said, looking at me with that sidelong glance of his; “here I see the great tower of Ivan Veliki, I hear the bells, I dance for their czarish majesties, and in the kitchens of the palace are pickled mushrooms, and oil of cinnamon, and sterlet soup, and pampushki, and——”
I laughed aloud; I recollected his greedy feast on the day of his rescue. Here was a soul that could not forsake the flesh-pots.