He approached his master with slavish humility, and kissed the seam of his garment.  “Farewell, master.  I thank you, for you have always been a kind master to me,” said he, and his tears moistened the general’s coat.

General Tottleben was as yet unable completely to convert his German heart into a Russian one.  He felt himself touched by this humble and heroic submission of his slave.  He felt as if he must give him some comfort on his fatal road.

“Ivan,” said he, softly, “your death will save, perhaps, not only the property, but also the lives of many hundred other men.”

Ivan kissed passionately his proffered hand.  “I thank you, master.  Farewell, and think sometimes of your poor Ivan.”

A quarter of an hour afterward was seen a troop of fifty Cossacks, on their swift-footed little horses, racing down Frederick Street.  Each man had a powder-sack with him, and seeing them ride by, people whispered to each other, “They are riding to the powder-mills.  They have shot away all their own powder, and now, in true Cossack style, they are going to take our Prussian powder.”  At that time Frederick Street did not reach beyond the river Spree.  On the other bank began the faubourgs and the gardens.  Even Monbijou was then only a royal country seat, situated in the Oranienburg suburb.  The powder-mills, which lay beyond the gardens, with a large sandy plain intervening, were sufficiently remote from the town to prevent all danger from their possible explosion.

Ivan, the serf of Count von Tottleben, rode by the side of the officer of the Cossacks.  He pranced his pony about, and was cheerful and jolly like his comrades, the merry sons of the steppe.  As they reached the gate they halted their horses, and gazed with evident pleasure on the desert, wild, sandy plain, which stretched out before them.

“How beautiful that is!” exclaimed Petrowitsch, the hetman of the Cossacks.  “Just look—­what a handsome steppe!”

“Just such a fine sand steppe as at home in our own country!” sighed one of the Cossacks, beginning to hum a song of his home.

“This is the finest scenery I have seen in Germany,” cried another.  “What a pleasure it would be to race over this steppe!”

“Come on, then, let us get up a race over this splendid steppe,” said a fourth, “and let us sing one of the songs we are used to at home.”

“Yes, agreed! let us!” cried all, ranging quickly their horses in line.

“Wait a moment,” cried Ivan; “I can’t sing, you all know, and I’ve only one sweetheart, and that’s my pipe.  Let me then light my pipe so that I can smoke.”  He struck fire with his steel, and lighting the tinder, placed it in the bowl of his pipe.  No one saw the sad, shuddering look which he cast at the glowing tinder and his spark-scattering pipe.  “Now forward, boys, and sing us a lively song from home,” said Ivan.

“Hurrah! hurrah!”

They charge over the beautiful plain, and sing in a pealing chorus, the favorite song of the Cossack, at once so soft and sad: