bit.'
'Let me go,' said Akim, 'aren't you satisfied?'
'I'll show you before the judge to-morrow whether I am satisfied,' and
Naum tightened his grip of Akim.
The labourers ran up with two lanterns and cords. 'Tie his arms,' Naum
ordered sharply. The men caught hold of Akim, stood him up and twisted
his arms behind his back.... One of them began abusing him, but
recognising the former owner of the inn lapsed into silence and only
exchanged glances with the others.
'Do you see, do you see!' Naum kept repeating, meanwhile throwing the
light of the lantern on the ground, 'there are hot embers in the pot;
look, there's a regular log alight here! We must find out where he got
this pot ... here, he has broken up twigs, too,' and Naum carefully
stamped out the fire with his foot. 'Search him, Fyodor,' he added,
'see if he hasn't got something else on him.'
Fyodor rummaged Akim's pockets and felt him all over while the old man
stood motionless, with his head drooping on his breast as though he
were dead.
'Here's a knife,' said Fyodor, taking an old kitchen knife out of the
front of Akim's coat.
'Aha, my fine gentleman, so that's what you were after,' cried Naum.
'Lads, you are witnesses ... here he wanted to murder me and set fire
to the house.... Lock him up for the night in the cellar, he can't get
out of that.... I'll keep watch all night myself and to-morrow as soon
as it is light we will take him to the police captain ... and you are
witnesses, do you hear!'
Akim was thrust into the cellar and the door was slammed.... Naum set
two men to watch it and did not go to bed himself.
Meanwhile, Yefrem's wife having convinced herself that her uninvited
guest had gone, set about her cooking though it was hardly
daylight.... It was a holiday. She squatted down before the stove to
get a hot ember and saw that someone had scraped out the hot ashes
before her; then she wanted her knife and searched for it in vain;
then of her four cooking pots one was missing. Yefrem's wife had the
reputation of being a woman with brains, and justly so. She stood and
pondered, then went to the lumber room, to her husband. It was not
easy to wake him--and still more difficult to explain to him why he
was being awakened.... To all that she said to him Yefrem made the
same answer.
'He's gone away--well, God bless him.... What business is it of mine?
He's taken our knife and our pot--well, God bless him, what has it to
do with me?'
At last, however, he got up and after listening attentively to his
wife came to the conclusion that it was a bad business, that something
must be done.
'Yes,' his wife repeated, 'it is a bad business; maybe he will be
doing mischief in his despair.... I saw last night that he was not
asleep but was just lying on the stove; it would be as well for you to
go and see, Yefrem Alexandritch.'
'I tell you what, Ulyana Fyodorovna,' Yefrem began, 'I'll go myself to
the inn now, and you be so kind, mother, as to give me just a drop to
sober me.'
Ulyana hesitated.
'Well,' she decided at last, 'I'll give you the vodka, Yefrem
Alexandritch; but mind now, none of your pranks.'
'Don't you worry, Ulyana Fyodorovna.'
And fortifying himself with a glass, Yefrem made his way to the inn.
It was only just getting light when he rode up to the inn but, already
a cart and a horse were standing at the gate and one of Naum's
