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one step, and pulled out his long knife with which he would
surely have killed the sailor if another sailor, Ivan Salni-
kov, who had unusual physical strength, had not caught sight
of this. With one blow of his fist to the head, he threw him
to the ground, tore away his knife, and started to hit him
with it so hard that the other one jumped up, and howling,
began to run toward the settlement. Almost at the same time,
one of our officers [ Lazarev ] had a similar experience with another
savage. He had a Turkish pistol which went off very easily
after it was cocked. Loading it with powder, and wanting to
get a bullet, he put it on a stone beside him. The Indian
took it in his hands and began to play with the trigger. The
officer, seeing this, took the pistol away from him, wishing
to explain to him that playing with this pistol was dangerous,
and imitated the sound of a shot with his voice. The savage,
interpreting this pantomime otherwise, immediately pulled out
his knife, and struck him with it, but hit only the cartridge
bag buckled around his belt. To stop him from repeating the
blow, the officer fired a blank cartridge into his face, and
on account of the nearness, inflicted a severe wound on his
cheek. Screaming, the Indian took to his heels toward the
settlement, and after him, all the rest when they saw running
blood.7

It was not possible then to tarry any longer because we
surely supposed that they would all return soon to avenge their
comrades. We jumped into the longboat and pushed off, although