"You are the worst of the lot i I can't bear you!"
After that it would have been advisable to have run for the waggons, but he could not move from where he was, and continued:
"In the next world you'll burn in Hell! I'll complain to Ivan Ivanitch! You are not to insult Emilianl"
"Also say, if you please," said Dimov, grinning at him,— "All little pigs before the milk is dry on their lips squeak ukases!"
Egorooshka felt he was choking, and—a thing which had never happened to him before—he shook all over, stamped his feet, and in a shrill voice screamed:
"Beat him! Beat him!"
The tears welled in his eyes, of which he was so ashamed that he turned and ran to the waggons. He did not see what impression his scream had made. He lay on a bale sobbing: and thumping with his hands and feet, while he called:
"Mamma! Mamma!"
The ppople, the shadows around the fire, the black bales of wool, the distant lightning flashing every minute on the horizon, all now seemed to him unearthly and grim. He was frightened, and in his despair asked himself how and why he had arrived in these unknown parts in the company of dreadful moujiks? Where now were his uncle, Father Christo- pher, and Deniski? Why are they so long away? Have they forgotten him? At the idea that he was forgotten and aban- doned to the buffetings of fate he shuddered, and such dread [ell on him that several times he had almost resolved to jump off the bales, and run back along the road without once turn- ing round; but the thought of the dark gloomy crosses, which he would surely encounter on his way, and the distant flashes of lightning deterred him. It was only when he whispered "Mamma, Mamma," that he felt a little better.
Dread must also have fallen on the drivers, for after Egorooshka had escaped from the side of the fire, they re- mained a long while silent; then in undertones they alluded to something that was coming, and that they must make all haste to depart and go away from it. . . . They supped in a hurry, put out the fire, and put the horses to in silence. By the bustle and their discontented phrases, it was evident that they foresaw some misfortune.
Before they started on their way, Dimov went up to Pan- teli and asked softly:
"What is his name?"
"Egor . . ." answered Panteli.
Dimov placed one foot on the wheel, and raised himself by a rope which was bound round a bale, and Egorooshka caught sight of a face and a curly head. Dimov was pale, looked tired and grave, but no longer spiteful.
"Era!" he called softly. "Go on, beat me!"
Egorooshka looked at him in surprise; at that moment there was a flash of lightning.
"Nitchevo, beat me," repeated Dimov.
But, not waiting for Egorooshka either to beat him or speak to him, he jumped down, saying:
"Ugh! It's wearisome!"
Then rolling and swinging his shoulders, he lazily dragged himself along the line of waggons, repeating as he went, in a semi-wailing, semi-vexed voice:
"It's wearisome! Oh, Lord! But don't be offended, Emil- ian," he said as he passed Emilian. "Ours is a cruel damned life!"
There was a flash of lightning on the right, and exactly as if there had been a reflection in a mirror it was repeated in the far distance.
"Egor, here take this!" shouted Panteli, throwing him up something large and black.
"What is it?" asked Egorooshka.
"A mat to cover you when the rain comes."
Egorooshka raised himself and took a look round. The horizon was growing visibly blacker, and already a pale light blinked as frequently as if it had eyes. The blackness, j ust as if it were overweighted, was bending to the right.
"Dad, is there going to be thunder?" inquired Egorooshka.
"Oh! my poor feet—they pester meI" drawled Panteli, not listening to him and treading painfully along.
To the left someone seemed to strike a match in the sky— a pale phosphorescent streak gleamed and went out. There was a very distant sound as of someone walking over an iron roof; very likely that someone was barefooted, for the iron gave a hollow rumble.
"It's all around," cried Kiruha.
Betwixt the distance and the right of the horizon the light- ning flashed so brightly that it illumined part of the steppe, and the spot where the clear sky bordered on the dark. A tremendous cloud, with large black tatters hanging along its edge, slowly moved in one compact mass; similar tatters, pressing one over the other, were gathering on the right and the left horizon. This ragged and tatter-demalion condition of the clouds gave them a kind of drunken, devil-may-care appearance. Sharply, and no longer dully, sounded the thun- der. Egorooshka crossed himse!f, and quickly put on his coat.
"It's wearisome!" came Dimov's cry from the foremost waggon, and by the tone of his voice one might conclude that he was getting angry again. "Wearisome!"
Suddenly a wind got up, and with such violence that it flearly carried away Egorooshka's bundle and mat; the mat :1prang up, straining on all sides and flapping the bales, and in Egorooshka's face. The wind whistled and tore over the steppe, whirled about frantically, and raised such a noise in the grass that it deadened the sound of the thunder and the screech of the wheels. It blew from the black cloud, bearing with it tomes of dust, and a smell of rain and damp earth. The light of the moon grew dim, or as it were dirtier, the stars became more overcast, and one saw the fog of dust and its shadow rolling hurriedly back along the side of the road. By now, in all probability, the whirlwind, in its evolutions having drawn up the dust, the dry grass, and feathers from the ground, has reached the sky itself; probably by that very dark cloud that rolling-flax are flying, and surely how frightened they must be! But through the dust which stopped up one's eyes nothing was to be seen except the flashes of lightning.
Egorooshka, thinking every minute that the rain would come, knelt up and covered himself in the mat.
"Pantel-li," cried someone in front; " . . . a . . . re ... ! "
"Can't hear!" loudly and hoarsely answered Panteli.
"A . . . a . . . re! Fa-ar!"
The thunder rolled over the sky from right to left, then back, demising somewhere near the foremost waggon.
"Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabaoth," whispered Ego- rooshka, crossing himself, "Heaven and earth arc full of Thy praise. . . ."
The lurid sky opened its mouth and breathed out white fire, immediately the thunder roared; hardly had it ceased when there flamed such a brilliant flash of lightning that through the rents in thc mat Egorooshka saw for an instant the whole wide road to its farthest end, all the drivers, and even Kiruha's waiscoat. The black tatters on the left were ascending, and one of them, a scraggy ugly one, like a paw with outspread toes, was approaching the moon. Egorooshka decided to close his eyes, to take no further notice, and wait till it was all over.
The rain, for some reason, was very long in coming. Ego- rooshka, in the hope that the cloud had passed away, looked out from the mat. It was terribly dark. Egorooshka could not see Panteli, nor the bales, nor himself. He glanced at thP place where lately the moon had been; as deep a gloom reigned there as over the waggons, while in the dark the flashes of lightning seemed so frequent and blinding that they hurt one's eyes.
"Panteli!" called Egorooshka.
There came no answer. But now, finally, one last time the wind harried the mat and fled some whither away. Then was heard an even calm noise. A large cold drop fell on to Ego- rooshka's knee, another crept on to his hand. He noticed that his knees were not covered up, and thought of arranging the mat; but at that moment there was a pelting and a tapping on the road, on the horses, and the bales. The rain had come. It and the mat seemed to understand each other. They spoke of something hurriedly, gaily and disputatiously like two magpies.