holding a pistol in
his right hand. The blood-stained sabre was beside him. His expressive
eyes were rolling in terror; at times he shuddered and clutched at his
head, as if indistinctly recalling the events of yesterday. I could not
read any sign of great determination in that uneasy glance of his, and
I told the major that it would be better at once to give orders to the
Cossacks to burst open the door and rush in, than to wait until the
murderer had quite recovered his senses.

At that moment the old captain of the Cossacks went up to the door and
called the murderer by name. The latter answered back.

"You have committed a sin, brother Ephimych!" said the captain, "so all
you can do now is to submit."

"I will not submit!" answered the Cossack.

"Have you no fear of God! You see, you are not one of those cursed
Chechenes, but an honest Christian! Come, if you have done it in an
unguarded moment there is no help for it! You cannot escape your fate!"

"I will not submit!" exclaimed the Cossack menacingly, and we could hear
the snap of the cocked trigger.

"Hey, my good woman!" said the Cossack captain to the old woman. "Say a
word to your son--perhaps he will lend an ear to you... You see, to go
on like this is only to make God angry. And look, the gentlemen here
have already been waiting two hours."

The old woman gazed fixedly at him and shook her head.

"Vasili Petrovich," said the captain, going up to the major; "he will
not surrender. I know him! If it comes to smashing in the door he will
strike down several of our men. Would it not be better if you ordered
him to be shot? There is a wide chink in the shutter."

At that moment a strange idea flashed through my head--like Vulich I
proposed to put fate to the test.

"Wait," I said to the major, "I will take him alive."

Bidding the captain enter into a conversation with the murderer and
setting three Cossacks at the door ready to force it open and rush to my
aid at a given signal, I walked round the hut and approached the fatal
window. My heart was beating violently.

"Aha, you cursed wretch!" cried the captain. "Are you laughing at us,
eh? Or do you think that we won't be able to get the better of you?"

He began to knock at the door with all his might. Putting my eye to the
chink, I followed the movements of the Cossack, who was not expecting an
attack from that direction. I pulled the shutter away suddenly and threw
myself in at the window, head