English.
The Hospodin Ivaskin from Verchnei had been desired by Mayor Behm to attend the English officers on their return to the harbour, in order to be their interpreter.

He now came.

He was an exile; and was of a considerable family in Russia; his father was a general, and he himself, after having received his education partly in France and partly in Germany, had been page to the Empress Elizabeth, and ensign in her guards.

At the age of sixteen, he was _knowted_, had his nose slit, and was banished, first to Siberia, end afterward to Kamtschatka, where he had lived thirty-one years.

He bore in his whole figure the strongest marks of old age, though he had scarcely reached his fifty-fourth year.