“But if the person is poor?” asked Feodor, indignantly, “if she cannot pay?”

“Then she belongs to him who has won her; he must decide on her fate.  He is—­”

The major stopped suddenly.  The other officers raised themselves in their seats, and listened with breathless attention.

“I think I hear the signal,” whispered the major.  He had not deceived himself.  A shrill, piercing whistle sounded a second time.  The officers sprang from their seats, and broke into a loud cry of triumph: 

“Our Cossacks are coming.  They have caught something!  Come, come, let us throw the dice.”

With fierce eagerness, they all rushed to the table, and stretched out their hands for the bones.  Immediately a deep, expectant silence ensued.  Nothing was heard but the rattling of the dice, and the monotonous calling of the numbers thrown.  Feodor alone remained at his place, lost in deep thought, and his tortured heart kept asking itself the question, “Could it be her whom the barbarians had captured and ill-used?” This question burnt in his brain like a red-hot dagger, upsetting his reason, and driving him almost mad with anger and grief.  Still the rattling of the noisy dice went on—­the calling of the numbers.  No one took notice of the young man, who, in desperate distress, his clinched fist pressed against his breast, paced up and down the farther end of the room, uttering broken words of anger and grief.  No one, as has been said, noticed him, nor did any one remark that at this moment the door in the background of the hall was opened, and six Cossacks entered, bearing a litter on their shoulders.

Feodor von Brenda saw them, and, with deep compassion, he regarded the veiled, inanimate figure lying on the litter, which was set down by the Cossacks.

“Colonel von Brenda,” cried Major von Fritsch at this moment, “it is your turn.”

“Oh, he is too sentimental!” laughed out Matusch.  “Is not that the fact, colonel?”

Feodor remained musing and pensive.  “It is a woman,” said he to himself—­“perhaps a young and handsome woman like Elise.  How if I should try to save her?  I have luck at the dice.  Well, I will try.”  And with a firm step he approached the table.  “Give me the bones,” cried he.  “I will throw with you for my share of the booty.”

The dice rattled and tumbled merrily on the table.

“Eighteen spots!”

“The highest throw!”

“Colonel von Brenda has won!”

“The woman is mine!” cried Feodor, his countenance beaming with joy.

His comrades looked at him with astonishment.  “A woman!  How do you know beforehand that it is a woman?”

Feodor pointed silently to the back part of the room.  There stood the Cossacks, next to the litter, waiting in solemn silence to be noticed.

“A woman!  Yes, by Heavens! it is a woman,” cried the officers.  And, with boisterous laughter, they rushed toward the Cossacks.