So there he sat, among these armed bandits. They were dressed in sheepskins and warm materials, had sheepskin caps on their heads; there was he with his bare arms, in well-worn grey trousers, his shirt fastened together at the neck with a piece of wood. Sitting among them, defenceless as a centipede, without anyone belonging to him, puffing clouds of smoke, he inwardly blessed this adventure, in which everything had turned out so well. The Cossacks looked at the fire, and they too said: 'This is very nice, very nice.'
To whom would not a blazing fire on a cold winter's night appeal?
They got more and more talkative and asked: 'Where are your wife and children?' They probably too had wives and children!
'My wife,' he said, 'has gone down to the village, she was afraid.' They laughed and tapped their chests: 'War is a bad thing, who would not be afraid?' Yakób assented all the more readily as he felt that for him the worst was over.
'Do you know the way to the village?' suddenly asked the captain. He was almost hidden in clouds of tobacco-smoke, but in his eyes there was a gleam, hard and sinister, like a bullet in a puff of smoke.
Yakób did not answer. How should he not know the way?
They started getting up, buckled on their belts and swords.
Yakób jumped up to give them the rest of the sausages and food which had been left on the plates. But they would only take the brandy, and left the tobacco and the broken meat.
'That will be for you…afterwards,' said the young Cossack, took a red muffler off his neck and put it round Yakob's shoulder.
'That will keep you warm.'