We went marching and singing, and utterly regardless of any perils that might await us upon the road.
For that matter, we saw no Cossacks, and even our old friends the wolves were silent.
The country itself had become less monotonous, and we soon found ourselves in a deep ravine, whose rugged cliffs were capped by the frozen pines.
Here there was a wonderful suggestion of remoteness and solitude; but it occurred to me, nevertheless, that it might be the very spot for an ambush, and I insisted upon a halt until our vedettes had made their reports. We even sent a man up to the heights above to be quite sure that the Cossacks were not camped in the thickets. When these had reported that no living thing moved in all that drear place, we followed Petrovka again and began to think of supper.
She had told us that it was just three leagues from the high road to her father's house, but we must have marched at least five before we came, without warning, upon a miserable village, the outstanding feature of which was the low and straggling farmhouse with a mighty barn at the southern end of it. Of a seigneur's habitation there was no sign whatever, and I found it difficult to believe that Petrovka's father could inhabit such a shabby dwelling as that to which she now led us. When we asked her if it were indeed her home, she, to our great astonishment, answered us in French, and replied that it was not.
"My father lives many, many leagues from here," she said, and laughed at the words. "This is the house of the moujik Serges. He was one of my father's servants, and he will feed you, my lords." And this she said with so pretty a grace that our anger was mollified in a moment.
"Why did you pretend not to speak French?" I asked her next.
She shook her head and said that she did not know.
"You make me laugh so much when you talk Russian," she said. I believe that to have been true.
Nevertheless, I was not easy. We had come upon a false errand, and it remained to be seen what was the end of it.