The chair with which Tchichikoff attempted to defend himself, was wrenched from his hands by Nosdrieff's serfs, and bereft of this last hope he closed his eyes and felt neither dead nor alive, yet he tried to grasp once more at the Tcherkessian pipe of his brutal host, and heaven knows, what the consequences might have been. But providence seemed to pity the position as well as the ribs, shoulders, and all the well-formed portions of our hero.
At this unexpected yet opportune moment, the sounds of post-horse bells were heard loudly ringing in the court-yard, and the wheels of a carriage rolled quickly over the stones before the entrance of the house. It was a telega, drawn by three horses, that had arrived so suddenly; shortly after, heavy footsteps were heard quickly approaching the room in which the actors of our present narrative were so dramatically collected.
They all looked involuntarily out of the window, and beheld a stranger in moustachios, dressed in a half military and half plain coat, alighting from the telega. Having taken his information in the anteroom, he entered at the very moment when Tchichikoff had not yet recovered from his stupefaction, and when he was in the most pitiable position in which a mortal man can possibly be.
"Allow me to ask which of you two gentlemen is Mr. Nosdrieff," said the stranger, looking with some astonishment at Nosdrieff, who stood there with the cherry pipe tube in his uplifted hand, and then at Tchichikoff, who had scarcely begun to recover from his disadvantageous position.
"Allow me first to ask you with whom I have the honour of speaking?" said Nosdrieff, whilst approaching the stranger.
"I am a commissioner of the military police."
"And what do you wish?"
"I come to inform you that in obedience to higher commands, I shall consider you my prisoner until proper inquiries will have been instituted into the affair in which you are compromised."
"What nonsense! What affair do you mean?" demanded Nosdrieff.
"You were inculpated in an affair, or rather a riot, in which a certain lieutenant of the guards, by name Maksimoff was insulted and even horsewhipped, whilst in a state of intoxication."