brother-my only brother! Are you sure he's not among you?"

The prisoners shake their heads pityingly, and the crowd makes way in silence, as the old man, with a low, weary sigh that is painful to hear, moves slowly away. Nineteen years has he hoped against hope for the return of his lost brother-a hope brightened into certainty by the march upon Khiva, and the release of the captives; and now-!

But it is already wearing late, and the dinner provided for the heroes of the day at Morozoff's (the principal eating-house of the town) is still to be thought of a matter recalled to the public attention by an officer who suddenly pulls up in front of the group.

"Dinner's ready for you, my lads; and I daresay you're ready for it; only remember that you've not been used to Russian food for a good while, and don't go into it too eagerly just at first, or you may do yourselves harm."

"All right, your honour-we'll be careful," answers a tall white-bearded Cossack, whose long gaunt frame. looks as if it could absorb the whole banquet at one gulp, like a boa-constrictor. The prisoners close up by twos, and march up one street, down another, round a sharp corner-coming out at length in front of the "house of entertainment," a smart brick building, facing a "public garden" about the size of a flower-bed. In the midst of the garden stands the sole monument of the town, a little stone chapel commemorating the

Emperor's escape from assassination on the 16th April 1866 at sight of which the devout Russians unbonnet and cross themselves once more.

The dinner is laid in the biggest room of the house, a large, airy, tolerably clean apartment, with brick floor and whitewashed walls, looking out upon a huge desolate courtyard, where, on a thick layer of rushes, two or three disused waggons lie helplessly, like soldiers in hospital. Well knowing the tastes of his countrymen, the hospitable host has covered the table with a noble array of national dainties-boiled beef, shtchee (cabbage soup), caviare, cheese, black bread, salted cucumber, and, above all, vodka (corn-whiskey)-upon each and all of which the emancipated Russians, forgetful of the officer's warning, throw themselves tooth and nail, their friends meanwhile standing around, and flooding them with an unceasing stream of questions.

"It's Easter with us now," remarks a big Cossack with a grin, through a tremendous mouthful of bread and cucumber; "but we've had a good long fast beforehand, anyhow!"

"Did they feed you badly in Khiva, then?" asks a bystander.

"Feed us badly? may they be fed the same way in t'other world, the accursed heathens, and sons of " (Here the speaker becomes unprintable for several paragraphs.) "One cake of bread in the morning, and there you were for the day! They ill-used us too, at first, as I wouldn't ill-use a dog; but when it got about that the expedition was making ready, and when the

Khan's ambassador came back from England* without doing any good, they got frightened, and began to treat us better, and to feed us better too."

"And what do you think? will they fight?"

"They fight? I'd like to see them! Why, their muskets are a lot of old trash that's been sent out of Russia because nobody would buy 'em; and as for powder, they've about as much as there's trees on the steppe here. They managed to fire one of their cannon. on a festival day last year, and it burst, and killed a whole lot of their own people. They fight? why a barn-door cock would chase any ten of them!"

"And when did you leave Khiva?”

"We've been thirty days on the road; but then we went very slowly. If they'd been carrying us away prisoners instead of letting us loose, I'll be bound they'd have gone faster, the pigs! When we first heard that we were to be set free, we hardly felt the ground under our feet; but it always seemed too good to be true, somehow; and even on the road, what with our going so slow, and these dogs whispering together among themselves, we were always afraid of being turned back at the very last. But I'd made up my mind beforehand, that if we were turned back, I'd just kill myself on the spot; for no death could be worse than that."

"We weren't so badly off as the Persians, though,

* I quote this as the man said it. He probably referred to the Khan's embassy to Lord Northbrook, Cossack geography being somewhat hazy.

after all," chimes in another; "poor fellows, they got treated worse than dogs-it was a shame to see it!"*

"Are there many Persian slaves there, then?"

"Plenty-twenty thousand at the very least; enough to smash the whole town, if they had only weapons. But I expect the way of it will be, that as soon as our brothers get within cannon shot of the place, the Persians will up and chop the Khivans to bits."

"You're right there, Petroushka," says his next neighbour, a tall handsome lad, with a very fair complexion for a Cossack. "That's just what they'll do— and quite right too. It's high time to settle accounts with those rascals. They've gone on robbing, and murdering, and serving the devil in every way, long enough without being paid for it; but, God be praised, the scythe's hit against a stone at last." +

"And what sort of life had you there!" asks one of his hearers.

"Well, I wasn't so very badly off. They set me to work in the Khan's garden, a fine big place with plenty of fruit in it; and they didn't bully me much, though they looked very sharp after me. But for all that (and his small grey eyes glitter ominously) if I were among 'em to-morrow with a good axe in my hand, I'd make their bones fly like the chips from felled timber."

Just at this moment the door opens, and in stalks the

* In some parts of Central Asia, however, they are highly valued. The infantry of the late Emir of Bokhara consisted almost entirely of Persian slaves; and the Generalissimo was a Persian.

+ A Russian proverb, answering to our Diamond cut diamond.

stalwart form of Colonel Kozireff, the Commandant of the fortress, with a cordial smile of welcome under his heavy moustache. As he enters, a grizzled Cossack of the Ural, with a nose cut clean in two by a sabre-stroke, rises from his place near the door, and silently gives him the military salute. The Commandant stops short

and looks hard at him.

"Do you know me, my lad?"

"I served under your honour at Fort Alexandrovsk, a long time ago. Perhaps you may remember one night that I came in from a ride after the 'black caps' (Khivans) when your honour was pleased to say that I had done well, and to give me a glass of vodka."

'Ah, to be sure! I remember you now. Sit down again and eat; you must want it."

"Your honour's right there. Little did I ever think to see Russian cabbage soup again; but, thank God, here it is." And the veteran shovels away with his wooden spoon like one tossing hay into a cart.

Dinner over, the prisoners assemble once more in front of the town-hall, to be counted by the Khivan secretary, while the envoy himself re-appears for a moment in order to exchange salutations with the Commandant. The tale of one and twenty is found to be correct; whereupon the secretary formally delivers them over to the officer in charge, and re-enters the hall with his master. Meanwhile the prisoners, obedient to the old familiar word of command, form in line, the still unsated townspeople crowding round them as eagerly as ever.