"This exhortation was of no effect. Amazement and terror quite overcame their natural discretion, and we found it impossible to parley with them. So great was the outcry that we stood aghast, till those faithful Cossacks came running, or rather staggering to the rescue, which restored our power of action. We bound them in couples to convenient trees with some ropes we had brought for the purpose; and then as the ladies still declined to join us, we wrapped all the most important of them in their cloaks, and placed them on our horses. In this they assisted us to some extent, by kindly disclosing the rank of each other. Thus we obtained all who were of any value from a financial point of view, twenty-two of sterling substance; and at their entreaty and assurance of amendment we took a domestic for each of them, and turned our horses' heads towards the glen where the vehicles awaited us. "My instructions were to leave no room for doubt as to our possession of six Princesses, whose names I will not give, because most of them, I trust, are still alive, and none the worse for their captivity. Enough that they were of exalted rank, and in command--as the Russian ladies contrive to be--of the Commanders of the army opposed to us. Therefore, before we started, I stood upon the terrace in front of the tents, with our horses pawing the turf, which was almost a novel treat to them, and the white moon making a picture of us. And there with great deference and courtesy, I called over from the list provided me the names of their incomparable Highnesses, the Princess O----, and the Princess D----, &c.; and each of them made answer according to temperament, and sense of resignation to the will of Heaven. Then I gave the word to start, and remained the last, to bring up the rear as in duty I was bound. "But suddenly a slender and timid figure came gliding, as if in the haste of despair, from the shadow of a tent, and stood close to me. It was the lovely maiden in the silver-pink attire, and she drew her veil partly aside, and glanced in the clear moonlight at my face, and then dropped her dark eyes, and then lifted them again with quivering tears like a suppliant--'Oh, Captain, am I to be left behind?' "'Lady, have no fear,' I said very gently, and half afraid to look again at her; 'you shall not be left unguarded. But tell me who you are, the fairest and the youngest of so many.' "'Alas, sir, I am not worth money now,' she answered with her white hands clasped together; 'there is none of my race to pay ransom now. There is not even a wealthy friend, to help, or to shelter Oria.' "'The Princess Oria, the lily-bud of Kajori, the last of the Royal House of Georgia, to which the race of Rurik is a mushroom! Princess Oria, I do you homage.'