‘What I say is he’s driven away the horses. I know it for a fact,’ he chimed in.

‘Girey and I went together.’ (His speaking of Girey Khan as ‘Girey’ was, to the Cossack mind, evidence of his boldness.) ‘Just beyond the river he kept bragging that he knew the whole of the steppe and would lead the way straight, but we rode on and the night was dark, and my Girey lost his way and began wandering in a circle without getting anywhere: couldn’t find the village, and there we were.

We must have gone too much to the right. I believe we wandered about well — nigh till midnight. Then, thank goodness, we heard dogs howling.’

‘Fools!’ said Daddy Eroshka. ‘There now, we too used to lose our way in the steppe.