This is her account of the night in which she saved the cornet:
“I had a presentiment which oppressed my heart; before I lay down I found a cat upon my bed. A bad sign! As soon as I fell asleep I had horrible dreams. I awoke and cried out, ‘Wo to me!’ My father then ordered me to go upon the Volga and draw away the nets; there I heard cries, and thought I recognised the voice of Semenov. It was more than a year since I had seen him, and I knew him in spite of the obscurity. I rowed towards his boat, and as I neared it, I heard the splash of a body thrown into the water. Fortunately, I was close by and succeeded in drawing him out of the river. It was Semenov.”
The inquiry was completed by a few other declarations of less consequence.
The Armenian merchant tried to excuse himself, and said that he endeavored to save the two men in order that they might have time for repentance. In other things he confirmed what Hortinja had said.
The fisherman Yakov gave an account of the manner in which Tsaryna had threatened him, because he would not give him his daughter.
The inquiry terminated on the thirteenth of May, and the depositions were on the same day laid before the criminal tribunal of Novogorod by the captain Isprawnik.
On the twenty-ninth of May the tribunal pronounced the decree which condemns:
Paul Ivanovitch Hortinja to perpetual banishment in Siberia, and ten years labor in the mines.
Jerome Smilabej, Armenian merchant, to one year and six days imprisonment, a fine of one thousand rubles, and the costs.
Pierre A. Tsaryna, being a soldier, was sent before the military tribunal.