Knight Without Armour

A.J., thinking chiefly of the soldiers in the neighbouring village, accepted the invitation, and the three began to walk uphill, turning off the road after a short distance and entering again the steep and already darkening forest. A.J. told the old man the barest facts about himself; and was glad to note that they were accepted quite naturally and without the least curiosity. “I, too, had a daughter once,” said Dorenko, “but she ran away and I never heard of her afterwards. She was not so good-looking as yours.”

After a quarter of an hour’s hard climb they came to another of those forest cottages, timber-built, and completely hidden from any distant view. The interior was not particularly clean and comfortable, despite Dorenko’s contrary opinion, and though also, after his warning, they were prepared for cockroaches, they had hardly imagined such a plague of them as existed. They swarmed over everything; they were on walls and roof, and in every crack and corner; they had to be shaken off the bread and skimmed out of liquids; they crackled underfoot and fell in soft sizzling pats on to the smouldering hearth. “Yes,” admitted Dorenko, tranquilly, “they are a nuisance, but I will say this for them—they never bite.”

Dorenko was certainly hospitable. He made his guests an appetising meal of soup and eggs; barring the cockroaches, there would have been much to enjoy. He talked a good deal, especially about his late wife and his loneliness since she had died. “Yes, indeed, I may marry again some day. I am on the lookout for the right sort of person, as you may guess. And, of course, it would not be a bad match in these days for a girl to marry an honest woodcutter who has his own cottage and perhaps a little money hidden away, too.” He leered cunningly. “You see I am trusting you, Peter Petrovitch. I know you are not the kind that would rob an honest woodcutter. But it is a fact, I assure you—I have hundreds of silver roubles buried in the ground beneath this cottage. Think of it—and you are, without doubt, a poor man!”

“I am a poor man, it is true, but I certainly would not rob you.”

“I know that, brother. As soon as I saw you coming along the road I thought—Here comes an honest man. And honest men are rare in these days—nearly as rare as gold roubles, eh? Or shall we say nearly as rare as a good-looking woman?”

A.J. conversed with him amiably for a time and then, as it was quite dark and Dorenko possessed no lamp, suggested settling down for the night. He was, in fact, dead tired, and he knew that Daly (as he had already begun to think of her) must be the same. He arranged for her to have the best place—near the fire and for that reason not so popular with the cockroaches; he and Dorenko shared the ground nearer the door. He was so sleepy that he felt almost afraid of going to sleep; he guessed that in any emergency he would be hard to awaken. However, Dorenko seemed trustworthy and there was always the revolver at hand. He lay down with it carefully concealed beneath the bundle of clothes that formed his pillow. Neither he nor Daly undressed at all, but Dorenko took off his outer clothes and performed the most intimate ritual of toilet quite frankly and shamelessly in the darkness. A decent, honest fellow, no doubt.

A.J. went to sleep almost instantly and knew nothing thenceforward till he felt himself being energetically shaken. “What’s the matter?” he cried, rubbing his eyes and groping for his revolver. It was still dark and all was perfectly silent except for the scurry of cockroaches disturbed by his sudden movement. “It’s only me, brother—Dorenko the woodcutter,” came a hoarse whisper a few inches from his right ear. “I waited till your daughter was asleep so that we could have a little talk together in private.”

“But I’m really far too sleepy to talk—”

“Ah, but listen, brother. You are a poor man, are you not?”

“Certainly, but does it matter at this time of night?”

“It matters a great deal when you have to tramp the roads with a poor sick daughter. She looked so very tired and ill to-night, brother—it’s plain she isn’t used to walking the roads.”

“Of course she isn’t—as I told you, she’s been used to a much more delicate life.”