The Daughter of the Commandant Part 10

"We shall know directly the amount of his strength," resumed the Commandant. "Va.s.silissa Igorofna, give me the key of the barn. Ivan Ignatiitch, bring up the Bashkir and tell Joula to fetch the rods."[50]

"Wait a bit, Ivan Kouzmitch," said the Commandant's wife, rising; "let me take Masha out of the house. Without I do so she would hear the cries, and they would frighten her. And as for me, to tell the truth, I am not over curious about such matters. So hoping to see you again--"

Torture was then so rooted in the practice of justice that the beneficial ukase[51] ordaining its abolition remained a long time of none effect. It was thought that the confession of the accused was indispensable to condemnation, an idea not merely unreasonable, but contrary to the dictates of the simplest good sense in legal matters, for, if the denial of the accused be not accepted as proof of his innocence, the extorted confession should still less serve as proof of his guilt. Yet even now I still hear old judges sometimes regret the abolition of this barbarous custom.

But in those days no one ever doubted of the necessity for torture, neither the judges nor the accused themselves. That is why the Commandant's order did not arouse any surprise or emotion among us. Iwan Ignatiitch went off to seek the Bashkir, who was under lock and key in the Commandant's barn, and a few minutes later he was brought into the ante-room. The Commandant ordered him to be brought before him.

The Bashkir crossed the sill with difficulty, owing to the wooden shackles he had on his feet. I glanced at him and involuntarily shuddered.

He lifted his high cap and remained near the door. I shall never forget that man; he seemed to be at least seventy years old, and he had neither nose nor ears. His head was shaven, and his beard consisted of a few grey hairs. He was little of stature, thin and bent; but his Tartar eyes still sparkled.

"Eh! eh!" said the Commandant, who recognized by these terrible marks one of the rebels punished in 1741, "you are an old wolf, by what I see.

You have already been caught in our traps. 'Tis not the first time you have rebelled, since you have been so well cropped. Come near and tell me who sent you."

The old Bashkir remained silent, and looked at the Commandant with a look of complete idiocy.

"Well, why don't you speak?" continued Ivan Kouzmitch. "Don't you understand Russ? Joula, ask him in your language who sent him to our fort."

Joula repeated Ivan Kouzmitch's question in the Tartar language. But the Bashkir looked at him with the same expression, and spoke never a word.

"Jachki!" the Commandant rapped out a Tartar oath, "I'll make you speak.

Here, Joula, strip him of his striped dressing-gown, his idiot's dress, and stripe his shoulders. Now then, Joula, touch him up properly."

Two pensioners began undressing the Bashkir. Great uneasiness then overspread the countenance of the unhappy man. He began looking all round like a poor little animal in the hands of children. But when one of the pensioners seized his hands in order to twine them round his neck, and, stooping, upraised the old man on his shoulders, when Joula took the rods and lifted his hands to strike, then the Bashkir gave a long, deep moan, and, throwing back his head, opened his mouth, wherein, instead of a tongue, was moving a short stump.

We were all horrified.

"Well," said the Commandant, "I see we can get nothing out of him.

Joula, take the Bashkir back to the barn; and as for us, gentlemen, we have still to deliberate."

We were continuing to discuss our situation, when Va.s.silissa Igorofna burst into the room, breathless, and looking affrighted.

"What has happened to you?" asked the Commandant, surprised.

"Misery! misery!" replied Va.s.silissa Igorofna. "Fort Nijneosern was taken this morning. Father Garasim's boy has just come back. He saw how it was taken. The Commandant and all the officers have been hanged, all the soldiers are prisoners. The rascals are coming here."

This unexpected news made a great impression upon me. The Commandant of Fort Nijneosern, a gentle and quiet young man, was known to me. Two months previously he had pa.s.sed on his way from Orenburg with his young wife, and he had stayed with Ivan Kouzmitch.

The Nijneosernaia was only twenty-five versts away from our fort. From hour to hour we might expect to be attacked by Pugatchef. The probable fate of Marya Ivanofna rose vividly before my imagination, and my heart failed me as I thought of it.

"Listen, Ivan Kouzmitch," I said to the Commandant, "it is our duty to defend the fort to the last gasp, that is understood. But we must think of the women's safety. Send them to Orenburg, if the road be still open, or to some fort further off and safer, which the rascals have not yet had time to reach."

Ivan Kouzmitch turned to his wife.

"Look here, mother, really, had we not better send you away to some more distant place till the rebels be put down?"

"What nonsense!" replied his wife.

"Show me the fortress that bullets cannot reach. In what respect is Belogorskaia not safe? Thank heaven, we have now lived here more than twenty-one years. We have seen the Bashkirs and the Kirghiz; perhaps we may weary out Pugatchef here."

"Well, little mother," rejoined Ivan Kouzmitch, "stay if you like, since you reckon so much on our fort. But what are we to do with Masha? It is all right if we weary him out or if we be succoured. But if the robbers take the fort?"

"Well, then--"

But here Va.s.silissa Igorofna could only stammer and become silent, choked by emotion.

"No, Va.s.silissa Igorofna," resumed the Commandant, who remarked that his words had made a great impression on his wife, perhaps for the first time in her life; "it is not proper for Masha to stay here. Let us send her to Orenburg to her G.o.dmother. There are enough soldiers and cannons there, and the walls are stone. And I should even advise you to go away thither, for though you be old yet think on what will befall you if the fort be taken by a.s.sault."

"Well! well!" said the wife, "we will send away Masha; but don't ask me to go away, and don't think to persuade me, for I will do no such thing.

It will not suit me either in my old age to part from you and go to seek a lonely grave in a strange land. We have lived together; we will die together."

"And you are right," said the Commandant. "Let us see, there is no time to lose. Go and get Masha ready for her journey; to-morrow we will start her off at daybreak, and we will even give her an escort, though, to tell the truth, we have none too many people here. But where is she?"

"At Akoulina Pamphilovna's," answered his wife. "She turned sick when she heard of the taking of Nijneosern; I dread lest she should fall ill. Oh! G.o.d in heaven! that we should have lived to see this!"

Va.s.silissa Igorofna went away to make ready for her daughter's departure.

The council at the Commandant's still continued, but I no longer took any part in it. Marya Ivanofna reappeared for supper, pale and her eyes red. We supped in silence, and we rose from table earlier than usual.

Each of us returned to his quarters after bidding good-bye to the whole family. I purposely forgot my sword, and came back to fetch it. I felt I should find Marya alone; in fact, she met me in the porch, and handed me my sword.

"Good-bye, Petr' Andrejtch," she said to me, crying; "they are sending me to Orenburg. Keep well and happy. Mayhap G.o.d will allow us to see one another again, if not--"

She began to sob. I pressed her in my arms.

"G.o.d be with you, my angel," I said to her. "My darling, my loved one, whatever befall me, rest a.s.sured that my last thought and my last prayer will be for you."

Masha still wept, sheltered on my breast. I kissed her pa.s.sionately, and abruptly went out.

CHAPTER VII.

THE a.s.sAULT.

All the night I could not sleep, and I did not even take off my clothes.

I had meant in the early morning to gain the gate of the fort, by which Marya Ivanofna was to leave, to bid her a last good-bye. I felt that a complete change had come over me. The agitation of my mind seemed less hard to bear than the dark melancholy in which I had been previously plunged. Blended with the sorrow of parting, I felt within me vague, but sweet, hopes, an eager expectation of coming dangers, and a feeling of n.o.ble ambition.

The night pa.s.sed quickly. I was going out, when my door opened and the corporal came in to tell me that our Cossacks had left the fort during the night, taking away with them by force Joula, and that around our ramparts unknown people were galloping. The thought that Marya Ivanofna had not been able to get away terrified me to death. I hastily gave some orders to the corporal, and I ran to the Commandant's house.

Day was breaking. I was hurrying down the street when I heard myself called by someone. I stopped.

"Where are you going, if I may presume to ask you?" said Iwan Ignatiitch, catching me up. "Ivan Kouzmitch is on the ramparts, and has sent me to seek you. The '_pugatch_'[52] has come."

"Is Marya Ivanofna gone?" I asked, with an inward trembling.

"She hasn't had time," rejoined Iwan Ignatiitch. "The road to Orenburg is blocked, the fort surrounded, and it's a bad look-out, Petr'