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 gra.s.s. 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 of resting!

Mercy upon us! the tambourines were simply booming away just behind our backs, the cart was rattling and creaking, the men were whistling, shouting, and singing, the horses were snorting and thumping on the ground with their hoofs.... They had overtaken us!

'Bad luck,' Filofey commented, in an emphatic undertone; and, clicking to the horses irresolutely, he began to urge them on again. But at that very instant there was a sort of sudden rush and whizz, and a very big, wide cart, harnessed with three lean horses, cut sharply at a rush up to us, galloped in front, and at once fell into a walking pace, blocking up the road.

'A regular brigand's trick!' murmured Filofey. I must own I felt a cold chill at my heart.... I fell to staring before me with strained attention in the half-darkness of the misty moonlight. In the cart in front of us were--half-lying, half-sitting--six men in shirts, and in unb.u.t.toned rough overcoats; two of them had no caps on; huge feet in boots were swinging and hanging over the cart-rail, arms were rising and falling helter-skelter... bodies were jolting backwards and forwards.... It was quite clear--a drunken party. Some were bawling at random; one was whistling very correctly and shrilly, another was swearing; on the driver's seat sat a sort of giant in a cape, driving.

They went at a walking pace, as' though paying no attention to us.

What was to be done? We followed them also at a walking pace... we could do nothing else.

For a quarter of a mile we moved along in this manner. The suspense was torturing.... To protect, to defend ourselves, was out of the question!

There were six of them; and I hadn't even a stick! Should we turn back?

But they would catch us up directly. I remembered the line of Zhukovsky (in the pa.s.sage where he speaks of the murder of field-marshal Kamensky):

'The scoundrel highwayman's vile axe!...'

Or else--strangling with filthy cord... flung into a ditch...there to choke and struggle like a hare in a trap....

Ugh, it was horrid!

And they, as before, went on at a walking pace, taking no notice of us.

'Filofey!' I whispered,'just try, keep more to the right; see if you can get by.'

Filofey tried--kept to the right... but they promptly kept to the right too... It was impossible to get by.

Filofey made another effort; he kept to the left.... But there, again, they did not let him pa.s.s the cart. They even laughed aloud. That meant that they wouldn't let us pa.s.s.

'Then they are a bad lot,' Filofey whispered to me over his shoulder.

'But what are they waiting for?' I inquired, also in a whisper.

'To reach the bridge--over there in front--in the hollow--above the stream.... They'll do for us there! That's always their way... by bridges. It's a clear case for us, master.' He added with a sigh: 'They'll hardly let us go alive; for the great thing for them is to keep it all dark. I'm sorry for one thing, master; my horses are lost, and my brothers won't get them!'

I should have been surprised at the time that Filofey could still trouble about his horses at such a moment; but, I must confess, I had no thoughts for him.... 'Will they really kill me?' I kept repeating mentally. 'Why should they? I'll give them everything I have....'

And the bridge was getting nearer and nearer; it could be more and more clearly seen.

Suddenly a sharp whoop was heard; the cart before us, as it were, flew ahead, dashed along, and reaching the bridge, at once stopped stock-still a little on one side of the road. My heart fairly sank like lead.

'Ah, brother Filofey,' I said, 'we are going to our death. Forgive me for bringing you to ruin.'

'As though it were your fault, master! There's no escaping one's fate!

Come, s.h.a.ggy, my trusty little horse,' Filofey addressed the shaft-horse; 'step on, brother! Do your last bit of service! It's all the same...'

And he urged his horses into a trot We began to get near the bridge--near that motionless, menacing cart.... In it everything was silent, as though on purpose. Not a single halloo! It was the stillness of the pike or the hawk, of every beast of prey, as its victim approaches. And now we were level with the cart.... Suddenly the giant in the cape sprang out of the cart, and came straight towards us!

He said nothing to Filofey, but the latter, of his own accord, tugged at the reins.... The coach stopped. The giant laid both arms on the carriage door, and bending forward his s.h.a.ggy head with a grin, he uttered the following speech in a soft, even voice, with the accent of a factory hand:

'Honoured sir, we are coming from an honest feast--from a wedding; we've been marrying one of our fine fellows--that is, we've put him to bed; we're all young lads, reckless chaps--there's been a good deal of drinking, and nothing to sober us; so wouldn't your honour be so good as to favour us, the least little, just for a dram of brandy for our mate?

We'd drink to your health, and remember your worship; but if you won't be gracious to us--well, we beg you not to be angry!'