“Look here, little mother, the country-women have taken it into their heads to light fires with straw, and as that might be the cause of a misfortune, I assembled my officers, and I ordered them to watch that the women do not make fires with straw, but rather with faggots and brambles.”

“And why were you obliged to shut up Polashka?” his wife asked him.  “Why was the poor girl obliged to stay in the kitchen till we came back?”

Ivan Kouzmitch was not prepared for such a question; he stammered some incoherent words.

Vassilissa Igorofna instantly understood that her husband had deceived her, but as she could not at that moment get anything out of him, she forebore questioning him, and spoke of some pickled cucumbers which Akoulina Pamphilovna knew how to prepare in a superlative manner.  All night long Vassilissa Igorofna lay awake trying to think what her husband could have in his head that she was not permitted to know.

The morrow, on her return from mass, she saw Iwan Ignatiitch busy clearing the cannon of the rags, small stones, bits of wood, knuckle-bones, and all kinds of rubbish that the little boys had crammed it with.

“What can these warlike preparations mean?” thought the Commandant’s wife.  “Can it be that they are afraid of an attack by the Kirghiz; but then is it likely that Ivan Kouzmitch would hide from me such a trifle?”

She called Iwan Ignatiitch, determined to have out of him the secret which was provoking her feminine curiosity.

Vassilissa Igorofna began by making to him some remarks on household matters, like a judge who begins a cross-examination by questions irrelevant to the subject in hand, in order to reassure and lull the watchfulness of the accused.  Then, after a few minutes’ silence, she gave a deep sigh, and said, shaking her head—­

“Oh! good Lord!  Just think what news!  What will come of all this?”

“Eh! my little mother,” replied Iwan Ignatiitch; “the Lord is merciful.  We have soldiers enough, and much, powder; I have cleared the cannon.  Perhaps we may be able to defeat this Pugatchef.  If God do not forsake us, the wolf will eat none of us here.”

“And what manner of man is this Pugatchef?” questioned the Commandant’s wife.

Iwan Ignatiitch saw plainly that he had said too much, and bit his tongue; but it was too late.  Vassilissa Igorofna obliged him to tell her all, after giving her word that she would tell no one.

She kept her promise, and did not breathe a word indeed to anyone, save only to the Pope’s wife, and that for the very good reason that the good lady’s cow, being still out on the steppe, might be “lifted” by the robbers.

Soon everybody was talking of Pugatchef.  The rumours abroad about him were very diverse.  The Commandant sent the “ouriadnik” on a mission to look well into all in the neighbouring village and little forts.  The “ouriadnik” came back after an absence of two days, and reported that he had seen in the steppe, about sixty versts from the fort, many fires, and that he had heard the Bashkirs say that an innumerable force was approaching.  He had nothing of a more detailed or accurate nature to relate, having been afraid of going too far.