At last Pugatchef was taken, and the war was at an end.  A few days later I should have been in the bosom of my family, when an unforeseen thunderbolt struck me.  I was ordered to be arrested and sent to Khasan, to the commission of inquiry appointed to try Pugatchef and his accomplices.

No sooner had I arrived in Khasan than I was lodged in prison, and irons were placed on my ankles.  It was a bad beginning, but I was full of hope and courage, and believed that I could easily explain my dealings with Pugatchef.

The next day I was summoned to appear before the commission, and asked how long I had been in Pugatchef’s service.

I replied indignantly that I had never been in his service; and then when I was asked how it was he had spared my life and given me a safe-conduct pass I told the story of the guide in the snowstorm and the hair-skin touloup.

Then came the question how was it I had left Orenburg, and gone straight to the rebel camp?

I felt I could not bring in Marya’s name, and expose her as a witness to the cross-examination of the commission, and so I stammered and became silent.

The officer of the guard then requested that I should be confronted with my principal accuser, and Chvabrine was brought into court.  A great change had come over him.  He was pale and thin, and his hair had already turned grey.  In a feeble but clear voice Chvabrine went through his story against me; that I had been Pugatchef’s spy in Orenburg, and that after leaving that town I had done all I could to aid the rebels.  I was glad of one thing, some spark of feeling kept him from mentioning Marya’s name.

I told the judges I could only repeat my former statement that I was entirely innocent of any part in the rebellion; and then I was taken back to prison, and underwent no further examination.

Several weeks passed, and then my father was informed that the tzarina had condescended to pardon his criminal son, and remit the capital punishment, condemning him instead to exile for life in the heart of Siberia.

The unexpected blow nearly killed my father.  He had heard of my arrest, and both Saveluetch and Marya had assured him of my complete innocence.  Now he broke out into bitter lament.

“What!” he kept on saying.  “What!  My son mixed up in the plots of Pugatchef!  Just God!  What have I lived to see!  The tzarina grants him life, but does that make it easier for me to bear?  It is not the execution which is horrible.  My ancestors have perished on the scaffold for conscience sake; but that an officer should join with robbers and felons!  Shame on our race for ever!”

In vain my mother endeavoured to comfort him by talking of the injustice of the verdict.  My father was inconsolable.

IV.—­The Captain’s Daughter to the Rescue

From the first Marya had been received with the warm-hearted hospitality that belonged to old-fashioned country people.  The opportunity of giving a home to a poor orphan seemed to them a favour from God.  In a very short time they were sincerely attached to her, for no one could know Marya without loving her, and both my father and my mother looked forward to the union of their son Peter with the captain’s daughter.