'Trrah! tah! tah! tah!' the thunder rang out distinctly, rolled over the sky, seemed to stumble, and somewhere by the foremost waggons or far behind to fall with an abrupt angry 'Trrra!'
The flashes of lightning had at first been only terrible, but with such thunder they seemed sinister and menacing. Their magic light pierced through closed eyelids and sent a chill all over the body. What could he do not to see them? Yegorushka made up his mind to turn over on his face. Cautiously, as though afraid of being watched, he got on all fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he turned back again.
'Trrah! tah! tah!' floated over his head, rolled under the waggons and exploded 'Kraa!'
Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three huge giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of lightning gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their figures very distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with covered faces, bowed heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy and dispirited and lost in thought. Perhaps they were not following the waggons with any harmful intent, and yet there was something awful in their proximity.
Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried: 'Panteley! Grandfather!'
'Trrah! tah! tah!' the sky answered him.
He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were flashes of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to the far distance, the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners. Streams of water were flowing along the road and bubbles were dancing. Panteley was walking beside the waggon; his tall hat and his shoulder were covered with a small mat; his figure expressed neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were deafened by the thunder and blinded by the lightning.
'Grandfather, the giants!' Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.
But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was covered from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in shape. Vassya, without anything over him, was walking with the same wooden step as usual, lifting his feet high and not bending his knees. In the flash of lightning it seemed as though the waggons were not moving and the men were motionless, that Vassya's lifted foot was rigid in the same position. . . .
Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced that the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would accidentally open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left off crossing himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother, and was simply numb with cold and the conviction that the storm would never end.
But at last there was the sound of voices.
'Yegory, are you asleep?' Panteley cried below. 'Get down! Is he deaf, the silly little thing? . . .'
'Something like a storm!' said an unfamiliar bass voice, and the stranger cleared his throat as though he had just tossed off a good glass of vodka.
Yegorushka opened his eyes. Close to the waggon stood Panteley, Emelyan, looking like a triangle, and the giants. The latter were by now much shorter, and when Yegorushka looked more closely at them they turned out to be ordinary peasants, carrying on their shoulders not pikes but pitchforks. In the space between Panteley and the triangular figure, gleamed the window of a low-pitched hut. So the waggons were halting in the village. Yegorushka flung off the mat, took his bundle and made haste to get off the waggon. Now when close to him there were people talking and a lighted window he no longer felt afraid, though the thunder was crashing as before and the whole sky was streaked with lightning.
'It was a good storm, all right, . . .' Panteley was muttering. 'Thank God, . . . my feet are a little softened by the rain. It was all right. . . . Have you got down, Yegory? Well, go into the hut; it is all right. . . .'
'Holy, holy, holy!' wheezed Emelyan, 'it must have struck something. . . . Are you of these parts?' he asked the giants.
'No, from Glinovo. We belong to Glinovo. We are working at the Platers'.'
'Threshing?'
'All sorts. Just now we are getting in the wheat. The lightning, the lightning! It is long since we have had such a storm. . . .'
Yegorushka went into the hut. He was met by a lean hunchbacked old woman with a sharp chin. She stood holding a tallow candle in her hands, screwing up her eyes and heaving prolonged sighs.
'What a storm God has sent us!' she said. 'And our lads are out for the night on the steppe; they'll have a bad time, poor dears! Take off your things, little sir, take off your things.'
Shivering with cold and shrugging squeamishly, Yegorushka pulled off his drenched overcoat, then stretched out his arms and straddled his legs, and stood a long time without moving. The slightest movement caused an unpleasant sensation of cold and wetness. His sleeves and the back of his shirt were sopped, his trousers stuck to his legs, his head was dripping.
'What's the use of standing there, with your legs apart, little lad?' said the old woman. 'Come, sit down.'
Holding his legs wide apart, Yegorushka went up to the table and sat down on a bench near somebody's head. The head moved, puffed a stream of air through its nose, made a chewing sound and subsided. A mound covered with a sheepskin stretched from the head along the bench; it was a peasant woman asleep.
The old woman went out sighing, and came back with a big water melon and a little sweet melon.
'Have something to eat, my dear! I have nothing else to offer you, . . .' she said, yawning. She rummaged in the table and took out a long sharp knife, very much like the one with which the brigands killed the merchants in the inn. 'Have some, my dear!'
Yegorushka, shivering as though he were in a fever, ate a slice of sweet melon with black bread and then a slice of water melon, and that made him feel colder still.
'Our lads are out on the steppe for the night, . . .' sighed the old woman while he was eating. 'The terror of the Lord! I'd light the candle under the ikon, but I don't know where Stepanida has put it. Have some more, little sir, have some more. . . .'
The old woman gave a yawn and, putting her right hand behind her, scratched her left shoulder.
