"I'd rather die," I cried, furiously, "than leave her to Chvabrine."

"Ah! Bah!" said the old man, "I understand now. Probably you are in love
with Marya Ivánofna. Then it is another thing. Poor boy! But still it is
not possible for me to give you a battalion and fifty Cossacks. This
expedition is unreasonable, and I cannot take it upon my own
responsibility."

I bowed my head; despair overwhelmed me. All at once an idea flashed
across me, and what it was the reader will see in the next chapter, as
the old novelists used to say.




CHAPTER XI.

THE REBEL CAMP.


I left the General and made haste to return home.

Savéliitch greeted me with his usual remonstrances--

"What pleasure can you find, sir, in fighting with these drunken
robbers? Is it the business of a _'boyár_?' The stars are not always
propitious, and you will only get killed for naught. Now if you were
making war with Turks or Swedes! But I'm ashamed even to talk of these
fellows with whom you are fighting."