"My word is as good as my bond," said he. "Instead of that worn-out old _ferronnière_ I bring you a brand-new one. Look at this stone, your Excellency. What a fire! how pure! a perfect Golconda brilliant! It dazzles the eyes like sunlight." And he went on crying up the new ornament until Daimona gave him back the old one for it. "You may have this examined. I am positive your goldsmith will value it at three thousand rubles. And, in fact, it cost every penny as much. But I don't grudge it you. All I ask is that you write his Excellency by your special courier, post-haste, that the matter must be at once decided. It is in your own interest. For every field-flask you make four copecks. I am off; I have not a moment to lose." And once more recommending the flasks to her Excellency's immediate attention, Herr Zsabakoff, rushing out, jumped into his carriage, drawn by three horses, and drove off as if possessed. This time he did not wait for Daimona to summon the jeweller. Daimona was in haste to write to Araktseieff anent the flasks. But writing with her was a slow process; the pen did not readily obey her untutored fingers. Only when the letter was finished did she submit the jewels to her goldsmith. He, suspiciously examining the _ferronnière_, begged permission to test it in his laboratory; then told her that, to a jeweller, it would be worth about three rubles. The brilliants were only Strasburg paste; the setting plated, not gold. Daimona, at first, was merely surprised; she could not believe the man mad enough to deceive her in a matter concerning three hundred thousand flasks. It was such a clumsy trick, such an unheard-of affront. A trinket worth three rubles was only the kind of present that would be given to a _vivandière_. "Hi, Schinko!" screeched Daimona. Whereupon her factotum appeared, a handsome, muscular fellow of the unmistakable gypsy type. "Take a horse at once, take three mounted men with you, and follow the man who just drove off with three horses abreast! Seize, bind, bring him back. See you do not come back without him!" The next instant the gypsy was on a horse, without saddle, galloping for his life. His three followers could scarce keep up with him. Daimona was satisfied that Schinko would soon come up with Zsabakoff. But within scarce half an hour the three horsemen, with Schinko at their head, came back the way they had gone, and behind them a troika in which sat a man alone. But not as a prisoner did they bring him; it was the other way about, he drove them before him. From time to time he kept putting his head out of the carriage, threatening the galloping horsemen so ominously with his stick that, as fast as their horses would go they tore homeward, looking back now and again with scared faces. "What's the meaning of this?" shrieked Daimona, furiously pacing the hall. "Schinko! You hounds! What, run away--you let yourselves be driven back by one man?"