The Cossacks received him coldly.

On entering the mud hut he lit a cigarette.

The Cossacks paid little attention to him, first because he was smoking a cigarette, and secondly because they had something else to divert them that evening.

Some hostile Chechens, relatives of the abrek who had been killed, had come from the hills with a scout to ransom the body; and the Cossacks were waiting for their Commanding Officer's arrival from the village.

The dead man's brother, tall and well shaped with a short cropped beard which was dyed red, despite his very tattered coat and cap was calm and majestic as a king.