--as a Russian officer--with no favour.

As we drew near, the stern look vanished, and he sprang forward with a
glad smile to seize and shake my hand. At the same moment Ivanka's
black eyes seemed to blaze with delight, as she ran towards me, and
clasped one of my legs. Little Dobri, bereft of speech, stood with legs
and arms apart, and mouth and eyes wide open, gazing at me.

"All well?" I asked anxiously.

"All well," said the blacksmith; then, with a glance at the
forge--"except the--; but that's not much after all.--Come in,
gentlemen, come in."

We entered, and found Marika as neat and thrifty as ever, though with a
touch of care about her pretty face which had not been there when I
first met her.

A few words explained the cause of their trouble.

"Sir," said Petroff, addressing me, but evidently speaking at Nicholas,
"we unfortunate Bulgarians have hard times of it just now. The Turk has
oppressed and robbed and tortured and murdered us in time past, and now
the Russian who has come to deliver us is, it seems to me, completing
our ruin. What between the two we poor wretches have come to a
miserable pass indeed."

He turned full on Nicholas, unable to repress a fierce look.

"Friend," said Nicholas gently, but firmly, "the chances of war are
often hard to bear, but you ought to recognise a great difference
between the sufferings which are caused by wilful oppression, and those
which are the unavoidable consequences of a state of warfare."

"Unavoidable!" retorted the blacksmith bitterly. "Is it not possible
for the Russians to carry supplies for their armies, instead of
demanding all our cattle for beef and all our harvests for fodder?"

"Do we not pay you for such things?" asked Nicholas, in the tone of a
man who wishes to propitiate his questioner.

"Yes, truly, but nothing like the worth of what you take; besides, of
what value are a few gold pieces to me? My wife and children cannot eat
gold, and there is little or nothing left in the land to buy. But that
is not the worst. Your Cossacks receive nothing from your Government
for rations, and are allowed to forage as they will. Do you suppose
that, when in want of anything, they will stop to inquire whether it
belongs to a Bulgarian or not? When the war broke out, and your troops
crossed the river, my cattle and grain were bought up, whether I would
or no, by your soldiers. They were paid for--underpaid, I say--but that
I cared not for,