“Slow down,” he said. “Curse these boots, my feet are all sore.”
“Take them off, it’ll be easier.”
Kostylin went barefoot—that was still worse; he cut his feet on the stones and kept falling behind. Zhilin said to him:
“If you scrape your feet, they’ll heal; if they catch up with us, they’ll kill us—that’s worse.”
Kostylin said nothing; he walked on and kept groaning. They went through the hollow for a long time. They heard dogs barking to the right. Zhilin stopped, looked around, climbed the hill, feeling with his hands.
“Eh,” he said, “we made a mistake, went too far right. There’s another aoul here, I saw it from the hill; we’ll have to go back and to the left up the hill. There should be a forest.”
But Kostylin said:
“Wait a little at least, give me a breather—my feet are all bloody.”
“Eh, brother, they’ll heal. Hop lighter, like this!”
And Zhilin ran back, to the left, up the hill, to the forest. Kostylin kept falling behind and moaning. Zhilin shushed at him and kept going.
They climbed the hill. There it was—the forest. They went into the forest—thorns tore the remains of their clothes. They came upon a path in the forest. They took it.
“Stop!” There was a tramp of hooves on the road. They stopped, listened. It tramped like a horse and stopped. They set off—it tramped again. They stopped—it stopped. Zhilin crept out, looked at the path where it was lighter—something was standing there. A horse or not a horse, and on the horse something strange, not like a man. It snorted—he heard it. “What a wonder!” Zhilin whistled softly—it shot off the road into the forest and went crashing through the forest like a storm, breaking branches.
Kostylin simply collapsed from fear. But Zhilin laughed and said:
“It was a stag. Hear his antlers breaking through the forest? We’re afraid of him, and he’s afraid of us.”
They went on. The Seven Sisters had begun to set, morning was not far off. Whether this was the way to go or not, they did not know. It seemed to Zhilin that he had been taken down this road and that they had some seven miles more to go, but there was no sure sign, and it was night—he could not tell. They came to a clearing. Kostylin sat down and said:
“As you like, but I won’t make it: my feet won’t walk.
Zhilin started persuading him.
“No,” he said, “I won’t make it, I can’t.”
Zhilin got angry, spat, swore at him.
“I’ll go alone then. Good-bye!”
Kostylin jumped up and went on. They walked for about three miles. The mist was still denser in the forest, you could see nothing in front of you, and the stars were barely visible.
Suddenly they heard a horse tramping ahead of them. They could hear it strike the stones with its shoes. Zhilin lay on his stomach and began listening to the ground.
“It’s so—there’s a horseman coming here, towards us.”
They ran off the road, sat in the bushes, and waited. Zhilin crept out to the road, looked—there was a mounted Tartar coming, driving a cow, and muttering something to himself under his breath. The Tartar rode by. Zhilin went back to Kostylin.
“Well, God spared us—get up, let’s go.”
Kostylin started to get up and fell.
“I can’t—by God, I can’t; I’ve got no strength.”
He was a heavy, plump man; he broke into a sweat; and the cold mist enveloped him in the forest, and his feet were scraped—he went limp. Zhilin started forcing him to get up. Kostylin screamed:
“Ow, that hurts!”
Zhilin froze.
“What are you shouting for? That Tartar’s close by, he’ll hear you.” And he thought: “He really has grown weak; what am I going to do with him? It’s no good to abandon a comrade.”
“Well,” he said, “get up, and I’ll carry you on my back, since you can’t walk.”
He hoisted Kostylin onto his back, held him under the thighs, went out to the road, and lugged him on.
“Only for Christ’s sake don’t squeeze my throat,” he said. “Hold me by the shoulders.”
It was heavy for Zhilin, his feet were also bloody, and he was tired. He kept bending over, adjusting, tossing Kostylin to get him higher, humping him down the road.
Evidently the Tartar had heard Kostylin scream. Zhilin heard someone coming behind them, calling out in his own language. Zhilin rushed into the bushes. The Tartar snatched his gun, fired and missed, shrieked in his own language, and galloped off down the road.
“Well,” said Zhilin, “we’re done for, brother! That dog will gather the Tartars now and come after us. Unless we can make a couple of miles, we’re done for.” And he thought about Kostylin: “What the devil made me take this block of wood with me? Alone I’d have gotten away long ago.”
Kostylin said:
“Go alone. Why should you perish because of me?”
“No, I won’t, it’s no good to abandon a comrade.”
He picked him up on his shoulders again and trudged on. He went like that for half a mile. It was all forest and no way out to be seen. The mist was beginning to disperse, and clouds seemed to be gathering; the stars were no longer visible. Zhilin was exhausted.
He came to a little spring by the roadside set with stones. He stopped and put Kostylin down.
“Let me rest and have a drink,” he said. “We can eat some flatbread. It mustn’t be far now.”
He had just lain down to drink when he heard a tramping behind them. They rushed to the right, into the bushes, down a slope, and lay flat.
They heard Tartar voices; the Tartars stopped at the very place where they had turned off the road. They talked, then began siccing, as if they were setting on dogs. They listened—something was crashing through the bushes, some unfamiliar dog was coming straight for them. It stopped and began to bark.
The Tartars, also unfamiliar, rode down on them; they seized them, bound them, put them on horses, and rode back.
They rode for two miles, met the master Abdul with two more Tartars. They talked for a while, put them on his horses, and went back to their aoul.
Abdul no longer laughed or said anything to them.
They were brought to the aoul at dawn and set down in the street. Children came running. They hit them with stones, with whips, and shrieked.
The Tartars gathered in a circle; the old man from the foot of the hill also came. They started talking. Zhilin heard that they were deciding what to do with them. Some said they should be sent further into the hills, but the old man said: “They must be killed.” Abdul protested, he said: “I gave money for them; I’ll take ransom for them.” But the old man said: “They won’t pay anything, they’ll only cause trouble. And it’s a sin to feed Russians. Kill them and be done with it.”
They dispersed. The master went up to Zhilin and started speaking to him:
“If the ransom is not sent to me within two weeks,” he said, “I’ll flog you to death. And if you try to escape again, I’ll kill you like a dog. Write a letter, a nice, good letter!”
They were brought paper, they wrote letters. Shackles were put on them, and they were taken behind the mosque. There was a hole there twelve feet deep, and they were put into that hole.
VI
THEIR LIFE BECAME quite wretched. Their shackles were not removed, and they were not allowed to see the light of day. Unbaked dough was thrown to them, as to dogs, and water was lowered to them in a jug. The hole was stinking, stuffy, damp. Kostylin became quite ill, swollen, and ached all over; he groaned all the time, or slept. Zhilin also became dejected, he saw things were bad. And he did not know how to get out of it.
He started to dig, but there was nowhere to throw the dirt; the master saw it and threatened to kill him.