“You shall answer for this barbarity,” said McKay “I demand to be taken before the General at once.”

“You shall see him, never fear, sooner than you might wish, perhaps.”

“Take me at once before him; I am not afraid.”

“You will wait till it suits us, dog; meanwhile, lie there.”

They had reached a rough shelter built of mud and long reeds.  It was the picket-house, the headquarters of the troop of Cossacks, and a number of them were lying and hanging about, their horses tethered close by.

The officer pointed to a corner of the hut, and, giving peremptory instructions to a couple of sentries to watch the prisoner, for whom they would have to answer with their lives, he disappeared.

Greatly dejected and cast down at the failure of his enterprise, and in acute physical pain from his recent ill-usage and the tightness of his bonds, McKay passed the rest of the night very miserably.

Dawn came at length, but with it no relief.  On the contrary, daylight aggravated his sufferings.  He could see now the cruel scowling visages of his captors, and the indescribable filth and squalor of the den in which he lay.

“Get up!” cried a voice; but McKay was too much dazed and distracted by all he had endured to understand that the command was addressed to him.

It was repeated more arrogantly, and accompanied by a brutal kick.

He rose slowly and reluctantly, and asked in a sullen voice—­

“Where are you taking me?”

“Before his Excellency.  Step out, or must we prick you along?”

A march of half-an-hour under a strong escort brought them to a large camp.  They passed through many lines of tents, and halted presently before a smart marquee.

The Cossack officer in charge entered it, and presently returned with the order—­

“March him in!”

McKay found himself in the presence of a broadly-built, middle-aged man, in the long grey great-coat worn by all ranks of the Russian army, from highest to lowest, and the flat, circular-topped cap carried also by all.  There was nothing to indicate the rank of this personage but a small silver ornament on each shoulder-strap, and another in the centre of the cap.  At a button-hole on his breast, however, was a small parti-coloured rosette, the simple record of orders and insignia too precious to carry in the field.

There was unbounded arrogance and contempt in his voice and manner as he addressed the prisoner, who might have been the vilest of created things.

“So”—­he spoke in French, like most well-educated Russians of that day, to show their aristocratic superiority—­“you have dared, wretch, to thrust yourself into the bear’s mouth!  You shall be hanged in half-an-hour.”

“I claim to be treated as a prisoner of war,” said McKay, boldly.

“You! impudent rogue!  A low camp-follower!  A sneaking, skulking spy—­taken in the very act!  You!”