tended
servant of his friend Prince Tchajawadse here stood quite unexpectedly
before him, as though he had suddenly sprung from the earth, while the
most pained consternation showed itself in his fair, expressive face.

"Is it you, Georgi?" exclaimed Heideck, into whose sadness of heart
the sight of the Circassian brought a faint gleam of hope; "and your
master--the Prince? Is he also close at hand?"

But the Cossacks did not seem inclined to permit their prisoner any
further private conversation.

"Be off with you, young fellow!" one of them exclaimed to the supposed
page; "this is a spy, who is to be shot on the spot; and no one is
allowed to speak to him."

He made a movement as though with a slight motion of his powerful fist
to thrust the slender lithe figure aside, when Georgi fearlessly pushed
back his arm and glared at him with flashing eyes.

"Hold your blasphemous tongue, you liar! You are a thousand times more
of a spy than this gentleman. If you do not leave go of him at once,
you will have a knouting that you will not forget until the end of your
life!"

The Cossacks looked at him and laughed. It was only the handsome face
and the aristocratic bearing of the bold young fellow that prevented
their seizing him.

"Take care, little fellow, that you do not first get the stick," one of
them said good-humouredly; "and be off with you, before we, by accident,
crush you between our finger and thumb."

"Go now, Georgi," Heideck now said, in his turn, on perceiving that the
Circassian was not inclined to obey their orders; "if your master is
near by, go and tell him that I am about to be shot against all the
rules of international law. But tell him to make haste, if he wants to
see me again alive; for it looks as though his comrades intend to make
short work of me."

He did not doubt that the beautiful, hot-blooded daughter of the
mountains had completely understood him. At all events he saw how she
suddenly turned like a flash of lightning, and with the lithe rapidity
of a slender lizard threaded her way through the crowd of rough
soldiers.

A new hope awoke in Heideck's breast, and he felt himself once more
fettered in a thousand bonds to life, which he just before thought he
had entirely parted from. He endeavoured to walk more slowly, in order
to gain time. But the Cossacks, who had until now treated him with a
certain amount of consideration, appeared to have become irritated
by the scene with the