It was a filthy scene, and while I looked at them I thought of the Princess Daria, and groaned in spirit. Where was she? How fared it with her, alone in that house, without even a slave to defend her? If my bonds had been fiery cords they could not have cut more deeply into my flesh, while my soul cried out with impatience to fly to her aid. Meanwhile the men drank and cursed and sang, and the smoke from the torches rose and hung above my head in a black cloud. And, in the midst of it, the door opened and one who seemed to be of higher rank than the others stood and looked at them; a tall man, with a fierce face and a great purple mark across his forehead. At the sight of him they shouted, and held up their cups to pledge him.
“Drinking yet, ye dogs!” he said contemptuously; “and we have not slain that arch traitor, the Jew, Von Gaden—nor the Prince Voronin.”
At this I pricked up my ears, but I kept my eyes closed, scenting danger. The Streltsi shouted and snarled.
“To-morrow, Martemian, son of Stenko,” they said, “to-morrow, you shall lead us—to-night we are aweary.”
He spat at them. “Weary,” he said; “drunk, ye devils, drunk! And who is the German there?”
“’Tis the French goldsmith, Martemian,” they cried, “and he is dead, or as good as dead.”
“Better dead,” he retorted. “A goldsmith has no use save to give us his hide or his gold.”
At this pleasantry they laughed and clapped each other on the shoulder, and the man in the door, suddenly opening a pouch he carried, threw a handful of roubles in their midst.
“Your pay,” he said, “your pay—as we get it! Catch who can.”
They fell upon the floor grovelling for it, and fighting and rolling over, like swine in a pen, and he laughed harshly.