Page:Ossendowski - Beasts, Men and Gods.djvu/60

44 The soldiers laughed at him.

"Remember that you are in a foreign country!" answered the Soyot, with a threat in his voice.

"God and the Devil!" cried one of the soldiers.

But the Soyot very calmly took a seat at the table and accepted the cup of tea the hostess was preparing for him. The conversation ceased. The Soyot finished the tea, smoked his long pipe and, standing up, said:

"If tomorrow morning the horses are not back at the owner's, we shall come and take them." And with these words he turned and went out.

I noticed an expression of apprehension on the faces of the soldiers. Shortly one was sent out as a messenger while the others sat silent with bowed heads. Late in the night the officer arrived with his other seven men. As he received the report about the Soyot, he knitted his brows and said:

"It's a bad mess. We must travel through the swamp where a Soyot will be behind every mound watching us."

He seemed really very anxious and his trouble fortunately prevented him from paying much attention to us. I began to calm him and promised on the morrow to arrange this matter with the Soyots. The officer was a coarse brute and a silly man, desiring strongly to be promoted for the capture of the Cossack officers, and feared that the Soyot could prevent him from reaching the Seybi.

At daybreak we started together with the Red detachment. When we had made about fifteen kilometers, we discovered behind the bushes two riders. They were Soyots. On their backs were their flint rifles.