'What, indeed! Upon my word! Where are we?'
'In the river.'
'I see we're in the river. But, like this, we shall be drowned directly. Is this how you cross the ford? Eh? Why, you're asleep, Filofey! Answer, do!'
'I've made a little mistake,' observed my guide;
'I've gone to one side, a bit wrong, but now we've got to wait a bit.'
'Got to wait a bit? What ever are we going to wait for?'
'Well, we must let the shaggy one look about him; which way he turns his head, that way we've got to go.'
I raised myself on the hay. The shaft-horse's head stood quite motionless. Above the head one could only see in the bright moonlight one ear slightly twitching backwards and forwards.
'Why, he's asleep too, your shaggy one!'
'No,' responded Filofey,' 'he's sniffing the water now.'
And everything was still again; there was only the faint gurgle of the water as before. I sank into a state of torpor.
Moonlight, and night, and the river, and we in it....
'What is that croaking noise?' I asked Filofey.
'That? Ducks in the reeds... or else snakes.'
All of a sudden the head of the shaft-horse shook, his ears pricked up; he gave a snort, began to move. 'Ho-ho, ho-ho-o!' Filofey began suddenly bawling at the top of his voice; he sat up and brandished the whip. The coach was at once tugged away from where it had stuck, it plunged forward, cleaving the waters of the river, and moved along, swaying and lurching from side to side.... At first it seemed to me we were sinking, getting deeper; however, after two or three tugs and jolts, the expanse of water seemed suddenly lower.... It got lower and lower, the coach seemed to grow up out of it, and now the wheels and the horses' tails could be seen, and now stirring with a mighty splashing of big drops, scattering showers of diamonds--no, not diamonds--sapphires in the dull brilliance of the moon, the horses with a spirited pull all together drew us on to the sandy bank and trotted along the road to the hill-side, their shining white legs flashing in rivalry.
'What will Filofey say now?' was the thought that glanced through my mind; 'you see I was right!' or something of that sort. But he said nothing. So I too did not think it necessary to reproach him for carelessness, and lying down in the hay, I tried again to go to sleep.
But I could not go to sleep, not because I was not tired from hunting, and not because the exciting experience I had just been through had dispelled my sleepiness: it was that we were driving through such very beautiful country. There were liberal, wide-stretching, grassy riverside meadows, with a multitude of small pools, little lakes, rivulets, creeks overgrown at the ends with branches and osiers--a regular Russian scene, such as Russians love, like the scenes amid which the heroes of our old legends rode out to shoot white swans and grey ducks. The road we were driven along wound in a yellowish ribbon, the horses ran lightly--and I could not close my eyes. I was admiring! And it all floated by, softened into harmony under the kindly light of the moon. Filofey--he too was touched by it.
'Those meadows are called St. Yegor's,' he said, turning to me. 'And beyond them come the Grand Duke's; there are no other meadows like them in all Russia.... Ah, it's lovely!' The shaft-horse snorted and shook itself.... 'God bless you,' commented Filofey gravely in an undertone. 'How lovely!' he repeated with a sigh; then he gave a long sort of grunt. 'There, mowing time's just upon us, and think what hay they'll rake up there!--regular mountains!--And there are lots of fish in the creeks. Such bream!' he added in a sing-song voice. 'In one word, life's sweet--one doesn't want to die.'
He suddenly raised his hand.
'Hullo! look-ee! over the lake... is it a crane standing there? Can it be fishing at night? Bless me! it's a branch, not a crane. Well, that was a mistake! But the moon is always so deceptive.'
So we drove on and on.... But now the end of the meadows had been reached, little copses and ploughed fields came into view; a little village flashed with two or three lights on one side--it was only four miles now to the main road. I fell asleep.
Again I did not wake up of my own accord. This time I was roused by the voice of Filofey.
'Master!... hey, master!'
I sat up. The coach was standing still on level ground in the very middle of the high-road. Filofey, who had turned round on the box, so as to face me, with wide-open eyes (I was positively surprised at them; I couldn't have imagined he had such large eyes), was whispering with mysterious significance:
'A rattle!... a rattle of wheels!'
'What do you say?'
'I say, there's a rattling! Bend down and listen. Do you hear it?'
I put my head out of the coach, held my breath, and did catch, somewhere in the distance, far behind us, a faint broken sound, as of wheels rolling.
'Do you hear it?' repeated Filofey.
'Well, yes,' I answered. 'Some vehicle is coming.'
'Oh, you don't hear... shoo! The tambourines... and whistling too....Do you hear? Take off your cap... you will hear better.'
I didn't take off my cap, but I listened.
'Well, yes... perhaps. But what of it?'
Filofey turned round facing the horses.
'It's a cart coming... lightly; iron-rimmed wheels,' he observed, and he took up the reins. 'It's wicked folks coming, master; hereabouts, you know, near Tula, they play a good many tricks.'
'What nonsense! What makes you suppose it's sure to be wicked people?'
'I speak the truth... with tambourines... and in an empty cart.... Who should it be?'
'Well... is it much further to Tula?'
'There's twelve miles further to go, and not a habitation here.'
'Well, then, get on quicker; it's no good lingering.'
Filofey brandished the whip, and the coach rolled on again.
Though I did not put much faith in Filofey, I could not go to sleep. 'What if it really is so?' A disagreeable sensation began to stir in me. I sat up in the coach--till then I had lain down--and began looking in all directions. While I had been asleep, a slight fog had come over, not the earth, but the sky; it stood high, the moon hung a whitish patch in it, as though in smoke. Everything had grown dim and blended together, though it was clearer near the ground. Around us flat, dreary country; fields, nothing but fields--here and there bushes and ravines--and again fields, mostly fallow, with scanty, dusty grass. A wilderness... deathlike! If only a quail had called!
We drove on for half an hour. Filofey kept constantly cracking his whip and clicking with his lips, but neither he nor I uttered a word. So we mounted the hillside.... Filofey pulled up the horses, and promptly said again:
'It is a rattle of wheels, master; yes, it is!'
I poked my head out of the coach again, but I might have stayed under the cover of the hood, so distinctly, though still from a distance, the sound reached me of cart-wheels, men whistling, the jingling of tambourines, and even the thud of horses' hoofs; I even fancied I could hear singing and laughter. The wind, it is true, was blowing from there, but there was no doubt that the unknown travellers were a good mile, perhaps two, nearer us. Filofey and I looked at one another; he only gave his hat a tweak forward from behind, and at once, bending over the reins, fell to whipping up the horses. They set off at a gallop, but they could not gallop for long, and fell back into a trot again. Filofey continued to whip them. We must get away!
I can't account for the fact that, though I had not at first shared Filofey's apprehensions, about this time I suddenly gained the conviction that we really were being followed by highwaymen.... I had heard nothing new: the same tambourines, the same rattle of a cart without a load, the same intermittent whistling, the same confused uproar.... But now I had no doubt. Filofey could not have made a mistake!
And now twenty minutes more had gone by.... During the last of these twenty minutes, even through the clatter and rumble of our own carriage, we could hear another clatter and another rumbling....
'Stop, Filofey,' I said; 'it's no use--the end's the same!'
Filofey uttered a faint-hearted 'wo'! The horses instantaneously stopped, as though delighted at the chance
