“Have you no fear of God! You see, you are not one of those cursed Chechenes, but an honest Christian! Come, if you have done it in an unguarded moment there is no help for it! You cannot escape your fate!”
“I will not submit!” exclaimed the Cossack menacingly, and we could hear the snap of the cocked trigger.
“Hey, my good woman!” said the Cossack captain to the old woman. “Say a word to your son—perhaps he will lend an ear to you... You see, to go on like this is only to make God angry. And look, the gentlemen here have already been waiting two hours.”
The old woman gazed fixedly at him and shook her head.
“Vasili Petrovich,” said the captain, going up to the major; “he will not surrender. I know him! If it comes to smashing in the door he will strike down several of our men. Would it not be better if you ordered him to be shot? There is a wide chink in the shutter.”
At that moment a strange idea flashed through my head—like Vulich I proposed to put fate to the test.
“Wait,” I said to the major, “I will take him alive.”
Bidding the captain enter into a conversation with the murderer and setting three Cossacks at the door ready to force it open and rush to my aid at a given signal, I walked round the hut and approached the fatal window. My heart was beating violently.
“Aha, you cursed wretch!” cried the captain. “Are you laughing at us, eh? Or do you think that we won’t be able to get the better of you?”
He began to knock at the door with all his might. Putting my eye to the chink, I followed the movements of the Cossack, who was not expecting an attack from that direction. I pulled the shutter away suddenly and threw myself in at the window, head foremost. A shot rang out right over my ear, and the bullet tore off one of my epaulettes. But the smoke which filled the room prevented my adversary from finding the sabre which was lying beside him. I seized him by the arms; the Cossacks burst in; and three minutes had not elapsed before they had the criminal bound and led off under escort.