Blok and Rimof, in their capacity of orderlies, carried Berdan rifles with a bandolier of cartridges over the shoulder. Presently the sound of hoofs echoed in the angle of the rocks above them. Then the regular footfalls turned into a confused trampling and scrabbling, as the horsemen halted in a bunch at sudden sight of the obstruction and backed away from it. Palma stepped quietly between the two vehicles and confronted them. "Well, what's the matter now?" he asked. "You are Lieutenant Vinsky?" asked one, shaking his horse a step or two out of the throng. Pavlof, looking over the barricade, saw that it was Lieutenant Tschak, Sokolof's right-hand man, _vice_ Razin retired through the hunger-strike, but of exactly the same breed and as like him as twin peas. The rest were low-browed, heavy-faced fellows of the ordinary Cossack type. All their little black eyes were fixed sullenly on Palma, as though casting up to him the account of their long, hard ride. Palma nodded curtly, and asked again, "What is it you want?" "You and your party are to return," said Tschak brusquely. "Ah! and why?" "Captain Sokolof's orders." "I am not under Captain Sokolof's orders and I shall not return." "Then we are to bring you." "Be advised, my friend, and don't attempt it." "We have our orders," said Tschak. "And I have mine." Tschak shook his bridle again and his pony made a step forward. Palma held up a warning hand. "We shall both regret it if worse comes of this. I warn you if you try to pass that barrier we shall stop you," and he stepped back behind the carriages and drew his companions round the angle of the rock. They could not see the enemy, nor the enemy them, till one or other advanced. The barricade, however, the crux of the matter, was visible to both parties. "We could get well ahead while they are thinking about it," said Pavlof, from no feeling of cowardice, but from a simple vast distaste for the killing of men, deepened in this case by the knowledge that they were only doing their duty and had no personal animus in the matter. "It would only be a postponement of the evil," said Palma, "and a throwing away of our chances. We are impregnable here.----I'm sorry, but the lives of ten Cossacks weigh nothing against what I am here for." It was late in the afternoon and the shadows were already abroad in that gloomy cleft. Palma passed round his cigarettes, and they leaned against the boulders smoking quietly and listening intently. Blok and Rimof were restless to be doing. To quiet them their leader gave them permission to steal into the tarantas and learn what the opposing force was up to. Blok was back in a moment, with a smile all over his face. "They're doing the same as we are--sitting smoking and thinking about it," he said.