“And it will be November before we reach our destination.  We shall not travel fast.  We have no motive for doing so.  We have to live by the way, and to gather a little money to help us through the winter.  We may shoot a bear or an elk sometimes, a few deer, and hares, but we shall want two or three sacks of flour, and some spirits.  For these we must either get money, or take the goods.  The first is the best, for we have no means of dragging heavy weights with us, and it would not do to infuriate the peasants by plundering any of them within twenty miles of the place where we mean to winter.  That would set them all against us.”

“I tell you frankly, Ladislas, that we shall not be willing to aid in any acts of robbery.  Of course, when one is with an army one has to plunder on a large scale, and it has often gone terribly against the grain, when I have had to join parties sent out to forage.  But it has to be done.  I would rather not join men in taking food, yet I understand that it may be necessary.  But as to taking money, I will have nothing to do with it.  At the same time, I understand that we cannot share your food, and be with you, without doing something.  Stanislas has brought me a little money from Warsaw, and I shall be ready to pay into the common treasury a sum sufficient to pay for our share of the food.  As to money taken, we shall not expect any share of it.  If you are attacked, we shall of course fight, and shall be ready to do our full share in all work.  So, at any rate, you will not be losers by taking us with you.”

“That is fair enough,” the captain said, when Stanislas had translated what Charlie said, suppressing, however, his remarks about foraging with the army, as the brigands were ignorant that Charlie and he had any connection with the Swedes, or that he was not, as he had given out, a young Englishman come out to set up as a trader.

The band now journeyed slowly on, keeping near the north bank of the Dnieper.  They went by twos and threes, uniting sometimes and entering a village or surrounding a farmhouse at night, and taking what they wanted.  The people were, however, terribly poor, and they were able to obtain but little beyond scanty supplies of flour, and occasionally a few gold or silver trinkets.  Many other bands of plunderers had passed along, in the course of the summer, and the robbers themselves were often moved to pity by the misery that they everywhere met with.

When in small parties they were obliged to avoid entering any villages, for once or twice furious attacks were made upon those who did so, the women joining the men in arming themselves with any weapon that came to hand, and in falling upon the strangers.

Only once did they succeed in obtaining plunder of value.  They had visited a village, but found it contained nothing worth taking.  One of the women said: 

“Why do you trouble poor people like us?  There is the count’s chateau three miles away.  They have every luxury there, while we are starving.”