knows poor folk
should not be set upon such dangerous adversaries!

CLAIRE. Serve you right! Where have they taken Captain Edstaston to?

NARYSHKIN [spitefully]. To the Empress, little beauty. He has insulted
the Empress. He will receive a hundred and one blows of the knout. [He
laughs and goes out, nursing his bitten finger.]

THE SERGEANT. He will feel only the first twenty and he will be
mercifully dead long before the end, little darling.

CLAIRE [sustained by an invincible snobbery]. They dare not touch an
English officer. I will go to the Empress myself: she cannot know who
Captain Edstaston is--who we are.

THE SERGEANT. Do so in the name of the Holy Nicholas, little beauty.

CLAIRE. Don't be impertinent. How can I get admission to the palace?

THE SERGEANT. Everybody goes in and out of the palace, little love.

CLAIRE. But I must get into the Empress's presence. I must speak to her.

THE SERGEANT. You shall, dear Little Mother. You shall give the poor old
Sergeant a rouble; and the blessed Nicholas will make your salvation his
charge.

CLAIRE [impetuously]. I will give you [she is about to say fifty
roubles, but checks herself cautiously]--Well: I don't mind giving you
two roubles if I can speak to the Empress.

THE SERGEANT [joyfully]. I praise Heaven for you, Little Mother. Come.
[He leads the way out.] It was the temptation of the devil that led
your young man to bruise my vitals and deprive me of breath. We must be
merciful to one another's faults.

THE FOURTH SCENE

A triangular recess communicating by a heavily curtained arch with the
huge ballroom of the palace. The light is subdued by red shades on the
candles. In the wall adjoining that pierced by the arch is a door. The
only piece of furniture is a very handsome chair on the arch side. In
the ballroom they are dancing a polonaise to the music of a brass band.

Naryshkin enters through the door, followed by the soldiers carrying
Edstaston, still trussed to the pole. Exhausted and dogged, he makes no
sound.

NARYSHKIN. Halt. Get that pole clear of the prisoner. [They dump
Edstaston on the floor and detach the pole. Naryshkin stoops over him
and addresses him insultingly.] Well! are you ready to be tortured? This
is the Empress's private torture chamber. Can I do anything to make you
quite comfortable? You have only to mention it.

EDSTASTON. Have you any back teeth?

NARYSHKIN [surprised]. Why?

EDSTASTON. His Majesty King Ge