"Misery! misery!" replied Vassilissa Igorofna. "Fort Nijnéosern was
taken this morning. Father Garasim's boy has just come back. He saw how
it was taken. The Commandant and all the officers have been hanged, all
the soldiers are prisoners. The rascals are coming here."

This unexpected news made a great impression upon me. The Commandant of
Fort Nijnéosern, a gentle and quiet young man, was known to me. Two
months previously he had passed on his way from Orenburg with his young
wife, and he had stayed with Iván Kouzmitch.

The Nijnéosernaia was only twenty-five vorsts away from our fort. From
hour to hour we might expect to be attacked by Pugatchéf. The probable
fate of Marya Ivánofna rose vividly before my imagination, and my heart
failed me as I thought of it.

"Listen, Iván Kouzmitch," I said to the Commandant, "it is our duty to
defend the fort to the last gasp, that is understood. But we must think
of the women's safety. Send them to Orenburg, if the road be still open,
or to some fort further off and safer, which the rascals have not yet
had time to reach."

Iván Kouzmitch turned to his wife.

"Look here, mother, really, had we not better send you away to some more
distant place till the rebels be put down?"

"What nonsense!" replied his wife.

"Show me the fortress that bullets cannot reach. In what respect is
Bélogorskaia not safe? Thank heaven, we have now lived here more than