His host’s agitation at once gave place to polite admiration and a show of confidence at which Bob almost laughed. He recognized that it was no laughing matter. The ruined state of the hamlet in which he had met the tiger was clear evidence that the invader’s threat was no empty one, and the tales he had heard of the Cossacks’ brutality did not promise a pleasant experience to any prisoner who fell into their power. But Bob felt that he had no alternative. There was just a hope that as a British subject he would come off with a whole skin, but in any case it was impossible to let the whole village suffer through any weakness of his. He therefore pulled aside the lattice, stepped out, and with a bold bearing that ill-matched his inward quaking, delivered himself up to the enemy. The Cossack captain sat his horse side by side with the Manchu a few paces in advance of his troop. As Bob approached, amid perfect silence, he noticed that the Manchu leant quickly forward and peered at him with an interest greater than the circumstances seemed to warrant. Something in the man’s face was familiar to Bob, who, as the Manchu turned half round to speak to the Russian officer, saw that he had only one ear. He remembered him clearly now. He was the man who had been saved from drowning by the _Sardinia_,—the man from whom Bob himself had saved Kobo’s half-throttled servant Taru in the Ueno Park. It was Kobo’s old enemy, the Manchu Tartar, Chang-Wo. The discovery did not tend to reassure Bob, but for all his tremors at the dangerous possibilities of the situation, he knew that his only chance was to maintain an air of utter fearlessness, and no one could have guessed from his undaunted attitude that he felt he was in a very tight place. The Cossack captain looked hard at him for a moment, then gruffly addressed him, presumably in Russian. Bob shook his head, saying, in the best French he could command, that he was sorry he was not familiar with the Russian tongue. To his surprise, the Cossack did not understand him. Bob had believed that every educated Russian knew French, and such ignorance seemed to prove this officer a boor. "So much the worse for me," thought Bob. The Cossack said a few words to the Manchu, who bent over and began a catechism in pidgin English, interpreting each answer as he received it to the Russian. Bob was surprised: on board the _Sardinia_ the man had professed to know no English. He had some difficulty at first in understanding the strange idiom, but the general purport of Chang-Wo’s questions was clear. "What-side belongey?" "I am a British subject." "What you pidgin?" "I am in the Japanese service." "What-for you Japan-side?" Bob hesitated. It was not likely that the Manchu would know what a range-finder was. He made an attempt to explain, but the circumlocutions he had to use aroused the Manchu’s suspicion, and he interrupted impatiently: "What you hab catchee in Korea?" "I was left behind."