"Yes, she's a fine old lady," said he from the corner, in a rather choked voice: "God grant that we may meet again!" Great love and grief were expressed in these simple words. "Why do you serve here?" I asked. "Have to serve," he replied with decision. "And double pay means a good deal for our brother, who is a poor man." The captain lived economically; he did not play cards, he rarely drank to excess, and he smoked ordinary tobacco, which from some inexplicable reason he did not call by its usual name,[7] but _sambrotalicheski tabák._ The captain had pleased me even before this. He had one of those simple, calm Russian faces, and looked you straight in the eye agreeably and easily. But after this conversation I felt a genuine respect for him. [Footnote 1: _Nabég_ (pronounced Na-be-ukh), the Invasion or Raid.] [Footnote 2: One and a third miles.] [Footnote 3: An affectionate diminished diminutive: Pavel (Paul), Pasha, Pashenka.] [Footnote 4: _ládanka,_ the bag containing sacred things worn by the pious, together with the baptismal cross.] [Footnote 5: _golubchik._] [Footnote 6: _moï bátiushka._] [Footnote 7: _tiutiún._] II. At four o'clock on the morning of the next day, the captain came riding up to my door. He had on an old well-worn coat without epaulets, wide Lesghian trousers, a round white Circassian cap, with drooping lambskin dyed yellow, and an ugly-looking Asiatic sabre across his shoulder. The little white horse[8] on which he rode came with head down, and mincing gait, and kept switching his slender tail. In spite of the fact that the good captain's figure was neither very warlike nor very handsome, yet there was in it such an expression of good-will toward every one around him, that it inspired involuntary respect. I did not keep him waiting a minute, but immediately mounted, and we rode off together from the gate of the fortress. The battalion was already two hundred _sazhens_[9] ahead of us, and had the appearance of some black, solid body in motion. It was possible to make out that it was infantry, only from the circumstance that while the bayonets appeared like long, dense needles, occasionally there came to the ear the sounds of a soldier's song, the drum, and a charming tenor, the leader of the sixth company,--a song which I had more than once enjoyed at the fort. The road ran through the midst of a deep, wide ravine, or _balka_ as it is called in the Caucasian dialect, along the banks of a small river, which at this time _was playing,_ that is, was having a freshet. Flocks of wild pigeons hovered around it, now settling on the rocky shore, now wheeling about in mid-air in swift circles and disappearing from sight.