as they left me one milch-cow and fodder enough to keep
her. Immediately after that a band of your lawless and unrationed
Cossacks came, killed the cow, and took the forage, without paying for
either. After that, the Moldavians, who drive your waggon-supplies for
you--a lawless set of brigands when there are no troops near to watch
them,--cleaned my house of every scrap that was worth carrying away.
What could I do? To kill a dozen of them would have been easy, but that
would not have been the way to protect my wife and children."

The man laid his great hand tenderly on Ivanka's head, while he was
speaking in his deep earnest voice; and Nicholas, who was well aware of
the truth of his remarks about the Cossacks and the waggon-drivers of
the army, expressed such genuine feeling and regret for the sufferings
with which the household had been visited, that Petroff was somewhat
appeased.

"But how came your forge to be burned?" I asked, desiring to change the
drift of the conversation.

The question called up a look of ferocity on the blacksmith's face, of
which I had not believed it capable.

"The Turks did it," he hissed, rather than said, between his teeth.
"The men of this village--men whom I have served for years--men by whom
I have been robbed for years, and to whose insults I have quietly and
tamely submitted until now, for the sake of these," (he pointed to his
wife and children)--"became enraged at the outbreak of the war, and
burned my workshop. They would have burned my cottage too, but luckily
there is a good partition-wall between it and the shop, which stayed the
flames. No doubt they would have despoiled my house, as they have done
to others, but my door and windows were barricaded, and they knew who
was inside. They left me; but that which the Turks spared the Russians
have taken. Still, sir," (he turned again full on Nicholas), "I must
say that if your Government is honest in its intentions, it is far from
wise in its methods."

"You hate the Turks, however, and are willing to serve against them?"
asked Nicholas.

The blacksmith shook his shaggy locks as he raised his head.

"Ay, I hate them, and as for--"

"Oh, husband!" pleaded Marika, for the first time breaking silence, "do
not take vengeance into your own hands."

"Well, as to that," returned Dobri, with a careless smile, "I have no
particular desire for vengeance; but the Turks have taken away my
livelihood; I have nothing to do, a