The Tartars conferred together, and sent the servant off somewhere, and when he was gone they stared now at Jilin, now at the door. The servant returned, followed by a stout, bare-footed man, in torn clothes. On his feet were also shackles. Jilin gave an exclamation of surprise. It was Kostilin. He, too, had been captured then. The Tartars sat them down side by side, and they began to tell each other of their experiences, the Tartars looking on in silence. Jilin told Kostilin what had happened to him, and Kostilin told Jilin that his horse had got tired, his rifle missed fire, and that this same Abdul had caught him up and captured him. Abdul jumped up and began to speak, pointing at Kostilin. The interpreter explained that they both belonged to the same master, and that the one who would produce the money first would be the first to be set free. “See how quiet your comrade is,” he said to Jilin. “You get angry and he has written home asking to have five thousand roubles sent him. He will be well fed, and no one will do him any harm.” And Jilin said, “My comrade can do what he likes. He may be rich, and I am not. I won’t go back on my word. You can kill me if you like, but you get no advantage by that; I won’t write for more than five hundred roubles.” The Tartars were silent. Suddenly Abdul sprang up, took out a pen, ink and a scrap of paper from a little box, put them in Jilin’s hands and slapping him on the shoulder, said, “Write.” He had agreed to the five hundred roubles. “One moment,” Jilin said to the interpreter; “tell him that he must feed and clothe us well, and that he must put us together so that we don’t feel so lonely, and he must remove our shackles.” He looked at Abdul as he spoke and smiled. Abdul too smiled and said, “You shall have the best of clothes--coats and boots fit to be married in, and you shall be fed like princes, and you can be together in the shed if you like, but I can’t take off the shackles because you might escape. You shall have them removed at night.” He rushed up to Jilin and slapped him on the shoulder. “Fine fellow! fine fellow!” he said. Jilin wrote the letter, but did not address it correctly, so that it should not reach home. “I will escape, somehow,” he thought. Jilin and Kostilin were taken back to the shed. They were given some straw, a jug of water and bread, two old coats and some worn boots, evidently taken from the bodies of dead soldiers. At night their shackles were removed and they were locked in the shed. III Thus Jilin and his comrade lived for a month. Their master was always cheerful. “You, good fellow, Ivan! I, Abdul, good fellow, too!” But he fed them badly. All the food they got was some unleavened bread of millet flour, or millet cakes, and sometimes nothing but raw dough.