"You may have this examined. I am positive your goldsmith will value it at three thousand rubles. And, in fact, it cost every penny as much. But I don't grudge it you. All I ask is that you write his Excellency by your special courier, post-haste, that the matter must be at once decided. It is in your own interest. For every field-flask you make four copecks. I am off; I have not a moment to lose."
And once more recommending the flasks to her Excellency's immediate attention, Herr Zsabakoff, rushing out, jumped into his carriage, drawn by three horses, and drove off as if possessed. This time he did not wait for Daimona to summon the jeweller.
Daimona was in haste to write to Araktseieff anent the flasks. But writing with her was a slow process; the pen did not readily obey her untutored fingers. Only when the letter was finished did she submit the jewels to her goldsmith. He, suspiciously examining the ferronnière, begged permission to test it in his laboratory; then told her that, to a jeweller, it would be worth about three rubles. The brilliants were only Strasburg paste; the setting plated, not gold.
Daimona, at first, was merely surprised; she could not believe the man mad enough to deceive her in a matter concerning three hundred thousand flasks. It was such a clumsy trick, such an unheard-of affront. A trinket worth three rubles was only the kind of present that would be given to a vivandière.
"Hi, Schinko!" screeched Daimona. Whereupon her factotum appeared, a handsome, muscular fellow of the unmistakable gypsy type. "Take a horse at once, take three mounted men with you, and follow the man who just drove off with three horses abreast! Seize, bind, bring him back. See you do not come back without him!"
The next instant the gypsy was on a horse, without saddle, galloping for his life. His three followers could scarce keep up with him. Daimona was satisfied that Schinko would soon come up with Zsabakoff.
But within scarce half an hour the three horsemen, with Schinko at their head, came back the way they had gone, and behind them a troika in which sat a man alone. But not as a prisoner did they bring him; it was the other way about, he drove them before him. From time to time he kept putting his head out of the carriage, threatening the galloping horsemen so ominously with his stick that, as fast as their horses would go they tore homeward, looking back now and again with scared faces.
"What's the meaning of this?" shrieked Daimona, furiously pacing the hall. "Schinko! You hounds! What, run away—you let yourselves be driven back by one man?"
Yes, when it is that "one" man! Arrived at the castle, and flinging back the leathern apron of the troika, he sprang up from his seat, roaring with all the power of his lungs after the runaways.
"You fellows! Just you wait! I'll teach you to molest travellers in broad daylight on the emperor's highway. A hundred lashes of the knout for each of you! I'll have you all fastened to the handle of the pump. Bojiriks, Bontshiks, thieves that ye are!"