A crossbar made of maple wood,
And a simple silken noose.
FOLK SONG
That night I did not sleep, nor did I undress. I intended to go at dawn to the fortress gate, from which Marya Ivanovna was to leave, and there say good-bye to her for the last time. I felt a great change in myself: the agitation of my soul was much less burdensome for me than the dejection I had been sunk in still recently. The sadness of separation mingled in me with vague but sweet hopes, the impatient expectation of danger, and a sense of noble ambition. The night passed imperceptibly. I was about to leave my house when the door opened and a corporal appeared with the report that the Cossacks had left the fortress during the night, taking Yulai with them by force, and that unknown men were riding around the fortress. The thought that Marya Ivanovna would not have time to leave horrified me; I quickly gave the corporal a few instructions and rushed at once to the commandant.
Dawn was breaking. I was flying down the street when I heard my name called. I stopped.
“Where are you going?” asked Ivan Ignatyich, catching up with me. “Ivan Kuzmich is on the rampart and sent me for you. Pugach has come.”
“Has Marya Ivanovna left?” I asked with a trembling heart.
“She didn’t have time,” Ivan Ignatyich replied. “The road to Orenburg has been cut; the fortress is surrounded. Things are bad, Pyotr Andreich!”
We went up to the rampart, an elevation formed by nature and fortified by a palisade. All the inhabitants of the fortress were already crowding there. The garrison stood under arms. The cannon had been moved there the day before. The commandant paced up and down in front of his scanty ranks. The proximity of danger inspired the old warrior with an extraordinary animation. On the steppe, no great distance from the fortress, some twenty horsemen were riding about. They seemed to be Cossacks, but there were also Bashkirs among them, easily recognizable by their lynx hats and their quivers. The commandant made the round of his troops, saying to his soldiers:
“Well, lads, let’s stand today for our mother empress and prove to the whole world that we are brave men faithful to our oath!”
The soldiers loudly voiced their zeal. Shvabrin stood next to me and gazed intently at the enemy. The people riding about on the steppe, noticing movement in the fortress, gathered into a little knot and started talking among themselves. The commandant ordered Ivan Ignatyich to point the cannon at them and put the match to it himself. The cannonball went whizzing over them without doing any damage. The riders, dispersing, galloped out of sight at once, and the steppe was left empty.
Then Vasilisa Egorovna appeared on the rampart, and with her Masha, who did not want to stay behind.
“Well, so?” said the commandant’s wife. “How’s the battle going? Where’s the enemy?”
“The enemy’s not far off,” replied Ivan Kuzmich. “God grant all will be well. What, Masha, are you scared?”
“No, papa,” replied Marya Ivanovna. “It’s scarier at home alone.”
Then she glanced at me and tried to smile. I involuntarily gripped the hilt of my sword, remembering that the day before I had received it from her hands, as if for the protection of my beloved. My heart glowed. I imagined myself as her knight. I longed to prove myself worthy of her trust, and waited impatiently for the decisive moment.
Just then new groups of horsemen appeared from over the rise half a mile from the fortress, and soon the steppe was strewn with a multitude of people, armed with lances and bows. Among them, on a white horse, rode a man in a red kaftan, with a drawn sword in his hand: this was Pugachev himself. He stopped; the men surrounded him, and, apparently at his command, four men separated from them and galloped at top speed right up to the fortress. We recognized them as our traitors. One of them held a sheet of paper under his hat; another had Yulai’s head stuck on his lance, which he shook off and threw over the paling to our side. The poor Kalmyk’s head landed at the commandant’s feet. The traitors shouted: “Don’t shoot; come out to the sovereign. The sovereign’s here!”
“I’ll give it to you!” cried Ivan Kuzmich. “Fire, lads!”
Our soldiers loosed a volley. The Cossack holding the letter reeled and fell off his horse; the others galloped back. I looked at Marya Ivanovna. Shocked by the sight of Yulai’s bloody head, deafened by the volley, she seemed to be in a daze. The commandant summoned the corporal and ordered him to take the piece of paper from the dead Cossack’s hand. The corporal went out to the field and came back leading the dead man’s horse by the bridle. He handed the commandant the letter. Ivan Kuzmich read it to himself and then tore it into little pieces. Meanwhile the rebels were evidently preparing for action. Soon bullets began to whistle past our ears and several arrows stuck into the ground and the palings near us.
