Dymov reluctantly raised himself on an elbow and looked at the road. 'Aye, that it be.'
Silence followed. Kiryukha bundlcd some dry graK together with a crackling sound, and thrust it under the pot. The fire blazed up, enveloping Styopka in black smoke, and the shadow of the cross darted do^ the road near the wagons.
'Aye, they were killed,' said Dymov reluctantly. 'The merchants, father and son, were travelling icon-seUers. They put up near here in the inn that Ignatius Fomin now keeps. The old man had had a drop too much, and he started bragging about having a lot of cash on him —they're a boastful lot, of course, are merchants, God help us, and they needs must show off to the likes of us. Now, some reapers was staying at the in at the time. Well, they heard the merchant's boasts and they took due note of'em.'
'O Lord, mercy on us!' sighed Panteley.
Dymov continued. 'Next day, soon as it was light the merchants got ready to leave and the reapers tagged along. "Let's travel together, mister. It's more cheerful and leu risky like, seeing as these be lonely parts." The merchants had to travel at walking pace to avoid breaking their icons, and that just suited them reapers.'
Dymov rose to a kneeling position, stretched and ya-wned. 'Well, ev^^^mg went off all right, but no sooner had the merchants reached this spot than them reapers laid into 'em with the scythes. The son, good for ^m, grabbed a scythe from one of them and did a bit of reaping on 'is account. But the reapers got the best of it ofcourse, seeing there was about eight of 'em. They hacked at them merchants till there weren't a sound place on their bodies. They fiinished the job and dragged 'em both off the road, the father one side and the son the other. Opposite this crou there's another on the other side. Whether it still stands I don't know. You can't see from here.'
'It's there,' said ^^^^a.
'They do say as how they found little money on 'em.'
'Aye,' confirmed Panteley. 'About a hundred roubles it were.'
'Aye, and three of them died later on, seeing the merchant cut 'em so bad with the scythe. 'Twas by the blood they tracked 'em. The merchant cut the hand off one, and they do say he ran three miles without it, and was found on a little h^^ock right by Kurikovo. He was a-squatting with his head on his knees as if he was a-^^^mg, but when they looked at him the ghost had left ^m like, and he was dead.'
'They traced him by his bloody tracks,' said Panteley.
All looked at the cross and again there was a hush. From some- where, probably the gully, floated a bird's mournful cry: 'Sleep, sleep, sleep!'
'There's lots of wicked folks in the world,' said Yemelyan.
'Aye, that there is,' agreed Panteley, moving closer to the fire and looking overcome by dread. 'Lots of 'em,' he went on in an undertone. 'I've seen enough of them in my time—beyond numbering, they've been, the bad 'uns. I've seen many a saintly, righteous man, too, but the sinful ones are past counting. Save us, Holy Mother, have mercy! I remember once—thirty years ago, maybe more—I was driving a merchant from Morshansk. He was a grand fellow, a striking-looking man he was, that merchant, and he weren't short of money. He was a good man, no harm to him. Well, we're a-going along like, and we puts up at an inn for the night. Now, i^u in the north ain't like those in these parts. Their yards are roofed in, same as the cattle sheds and threshing barns on big southern estates-—only them barns would be higher.
'Well, we put up there, and it's all right. My merchant has a room, and I'm with the horses, and everything's proper like. Well, I says my prayers before going to sleep, lads, and I goes out for a walk in the yard. But the night's pitch black—not a blind thing can you see. I walks up and downwn a bit till I'm near the wagons like, and I sees a light a-twinkling. Now that's a bit rum, that is. The landlord and his lady have long been abed, it seems, and there ain't no other guests, barring me and the merchant. So what's that light doing? I don't like the look of things. So I goes up to it, and—Lord have mercy on us, Holy Mother save us! Right downwn on ground level I sees a little win- dow with bars on it—in the house, that is. I get downwn on the ground for a look, and a cold chill runs right through me.'
Kiryukha thrust a bundle of brushwood into the fire, trying to do so quietly, and the old man waited for it to stop crackling and hiuing before going on.
'I look in there and I see a big cellar—all dark and gloomy. There's a lamp a-burning on a barrel, and there's a dozen men in there in red shirts with rolled-up sleeves, a-sharpening of long knives. "Oho!" thinks I. "We've fallen in with a gang of highwaymen." So what's to be done? I run to the merchant, I wake him quiet like. "Don't be afeared, Mister Merchant," says I, "but we're in a bad way, we are. We're in a robbers' den." His face changes. "What shall we do, Pan- teley?" he asks. "I've a lot of money with me—' tis for the orphans. As for my soul," says he, "that's in the Lord's hands. I ain't afeared to die. But," says he, "I am afeared of losing the orphan fund." Well, I'm proper flummoxed. The gates are locked, there's no getting out by horse or by foot. If there'd been a fence you could have climbed over, but the yard has a roof to it. "Well, Mister Merchant," says I. "Never you fear, you say your prayers. Happen the Lord won't harm them orphans. Stay here," says I, "and don't let on, and happen I'll hit on something in the meantime."
'So far so good. I says a prayer, and the good Lord enlightens me mind. I climb on me carriage and, quiet as could be so no one will hear, I start stripping the thatch from the eaves, I make a hole and out I crawl. Then, when I'm outside, I jwnp off the roof and do^ the road I as fast as me legs'll carry me—run, ^m, till I'm worn to a frazzle. Happen I do three miles in one breath, or more. Then, praise the Lord, I see a village. I rush to a hut, bang on the window. "Good people," says I, and I tells them the tale. "Don't you let 'em destroy a Christian soul." I wake them all up, the villagers gather and off we go together. Some take rope, some cudgels, some pitchforks. We break the in gate do-wn and straight to the cellar we go.
'By now them robbers have finished sharpening their knives, and they're just going td cut the merchant's throat. The peasants grab the lot of them, tie them up and take them to the authorities. The mer- chant's so pleased he gives them three hundred roubles and me five gold coins-—and he writes my name do^ so he can remember me in his prayers. They do say a mighty lot of human bones was found in that cellar later. Aye, bones. They'd been a-robbing of people and then bu^rog them to cover the traces, see? Aye, and later on the Morshansk executioners has the flogging of 'em.'
His story finished, Panteley surveyed his audience while they said nothing and looked at him. The water was boiling now, and Styopka was skimming off the froth.
'Is the lard ready?' whispered ^^^^a.
'In a minute.'
Styopka—fixing his eyes on old Pantdey, as if fearing to miss the beginning ofanother story before he got back—ran to the wagons, but soon re^med with a small wooden bowl and began rubbing pork fat in it.
'I went on another journey with a merchant,' continued Panteley in the same low voice, not blinking his eyes. 'Name of Peter Grigor- yevich, as I now mind. A decent fellow he were, the merchant.
'We stay at an inn, same as before—him in a room, me with the horses. The landlord and his wife seem decent folks, kindly like, and their workers seem all right too. But I can't sleep, lads, there's some- thing on me mind. A hunch it were, no more to be said. The gates are open and there's lots of folk about, but I'm kind of frightened, I don't ffed right at all. Everyone has long been asleep, it's far into the night and it'll soon bt; time to get up, but I just lie alone there in me covered wagon, and I don't close me eyes no more than an owl do. And I can hear this tapping noise, lads: tap, tap, tap. Someone steals up to the wagon. I stick out me head for a look and there's a woman in nothing but a shift, barefoot.