“At a rapid pace, the Tartars returned to their village. One of our party, well acquainted with the Tartar tongue, followed them, concealing himself behind the bushes, in order to overhear, if possible, their conversation, and to satisfy himself whether they were honest people, in whom we might confide. But the Tartars exchanged not a word upon their way home. In an hour they came to us again, bringing three other men, one of whom wore a white turban. As they passed before some brushwood in which our comrade lay concealed, he heard them in animated conversation. Following them stealthily through the thicket, he caught enough of their discourse to ascertain that they were of different opinions with respect to the line of conduct to be adopted with respect to us. One of them, who, as we subsequently learned, had served at Warsaw in Prince Paskewitch’s Oriental body-guard, would at once have informed the Cossacks of our hiding-place. But the man in the white turban sought to restrain him, and wished first to speak with us. “The Tartars found us at the appointed place. The White Turban was a Mollah, a fine grey-haired old man with a venerable countenance. To him we frankly confided the history of our sufferings and the object we had in view. After hearing us, he remained for some time buried in thought. To our great surprise one of the Tartars now addressed us in broken Polish, and told us that he had been at Warsaw. At this we were so overjoyed that we were near embracing the man. But the comrade we had sent out to reconnoitre had rejoined us. He seized the Tartar furiously by the beard, upbraided him with the treacherous advice he had given to his countrymen, and threatened to kill him. The old Mollah interfered as peacemaker, and assured us of his assistance and protection, if it were seriously our intention to escape into Turkey and become converts to the creed of Mahomet. We protested that such was our design, although we mentally prayed to our God and to the Virgin to forgive us this necessary lie, for our design was to escape from the Russian hell, but not to become faithless to our holy religion. Before the Mollah departed, he had to swear by his beard and by the Prophet that he would not betray us. We made the others take the same oath. The ex-life-guardsman we proposed keeping as a hostage. But the Mollah begged us not to do so, and to trust to his word, which he pledged for the man’s silence. Above all we wanted provisions. The Tartars had unfortunately come empty-handed. The pangs of hunger almost drove us to accompany them into the village. But the Mollah warned us that we should there find families of Armenian peasants, who would certainly betray us to the Russians. Fluctuating between hope and fear, we saw them depart. The Mollah’s last advice was to be vigilant during the night, since our presence might have been observed by others, who might report it to the Russians.