For four months every thing went on as well as heart could wish. Petchorin, as I believe I told you before, was uncommonly fond of the chase. Formerly all his delight was in the woods, after the wild boars and the deer, but now he hardly ever went outside the gates of the fort. All at once, however, I observed he was grown pensive, and would walk up and down the room with his hands behind his back. Then he went out one morning to shoot, without saying a word to any one, and stayed out the whole day. Presently this happened a second time, and then again and again. There’s something wrong, thought I; I’ll lay my life on it, a black cat has jumped between the pair.
[It was so. Petchorin’s passion was beginning to cool, and Bela was growing unhappy. One day, when Petchorin was away hunting, she walked out with the captain on the ramparts.]
Our fort stood on high ground, and the view from the ramparts was very fine. On the one side was an open tract, bounded by ravines, beyond which was a wood, stretching up to the crest of the mountain; here and there hamlets were seen smoking, and horses grazing. On the other side ran a small stream scattering its spray over the thick copse that clothed a rocky hill, an offshoot from the main chain of the Caucasus. We sat on the angle of a bastion, so that we had a full view on both sides. Suddenly I saw a man ride out of the wood on a grey horse. He came towards us, stopped on the other side of the brook, and began to make his horse caper about as if he was mad. ‘What the deuce is that?’ said I. ‘Look yonder, Bela, your eyes are younger than mine; what sort of a zhighit is that? For whose amusement is he playing such antics?’
She looked towards the horseman, and cried out, ‘It is Kasbitch! And that is my father’s horse!’ she said, grasping my hand. She trembled like an aspen leaf, and her eyes flashed. ‘Ha! the robber!’ cried I, and, looking more closely, I saw sure enough it was Kasbitch with his swarthy features, and his clothes as ragged and dirty as ever.
‘Come here,’ said I, to the sentry; ‘look to your piece, and shoot me that fellow yonder. You shall have a silver ruble if you hit him.’ ‘Very well, your honour; but he never stops a moment in one spot.’ ‘Call to him to stand still,’ said I, laughing. ‘Holla, my good fellow,’ shouted the sentinel, beckoning to the horseman, ‘stand still a bit, will you? what do you keep wheeling about in that way for?’ Kasbitch actually stopped, and appeared to listen, thinking, probably, that we wanted to parley with him—but no such thing; my grenadier levelled—puff!—the piece flashed in the pan. Kasbitch struck the spur into his horse, and it made a side bound. Then, standing up in the stirrups, he shouted out something in his own tongue, shook his _nagaika_ (whip) at us, and was off.