Читать книгу The Secret Dispatch; or, The Adventures of Captain Balgonie онлайн

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"And now, Paulovitch, give me a light for my pipe, and let me begone."

A few minutes more and these worthy compatriots had separated.

Podatchkine rode somewhat leisurely to a ford that he knew of lower down the river, believing that in time the whole onus, and perhaps suspicion, of Balgonie's death (if it was necessary) might fall on the woodman, whom he had resolved to cheat of the promised fifty roubles if he could.

"He will play me false," muttered Podatchkine. "Is not the dog a gipsy? Beware of the tamed wolf, of the baptized Jew, and the enemy who has made it up; why should I not delude him who will readily delude me?"

Our enterprising Corporal was correct in his estimate of Nicholas Paulovitch; for, at the same moment, that personage, while wrapped in his filthy sheepskin (caring nothing for the comfort of any other bed than the floor), was considering how he might drug and drown both the officer and his treacherous guide, sell both their bodies at the nearest military post, and, by taking the dispatch to Novgorod himself, obtain the entire reward offered for it by the Lieutenants Mierowitz and Usakoff, or still more, perhaps, by delivering it to the Empress!