“You are a queer lot in Vyazovka,” Artyom went on, as though not listening.  “The church has been robbed twice in one year. . .  To think that there are such wicked men!  So they fear neither man nor God!  To steal what is the Lord’s!  Hanging’s too good for them!  In old days the governors used to have such rogues flogged.”

“However you punish, whether it is with flogging or anything else, it will be no good, you will not knock the wickedness out of a wicked man.”

“Save and preserve us, Queen of Heaven!” The forester sighed abruptly.  “Save us from all enemies and evildoers.  Last week at Volovy Zaimishtchy, a mower struck another on the chest with his scythe . . . he killed him outright!  And what was it all about, God bless me!  One mower came out of the tavern . . . drunk.  The other met him, drunk too.”

The young man, who had been listening attentively, suddenly started, and his face grew tense as he listened.

“Stay,” he said, interrupting the forester.  “I fancy someone is shouting.”

The hunter and the forester fell to listening with their eyes fixed on the window.  Through the noise of the forest they could hear sounds such as the strained ear can always distinguish in every storm, so that it was difficult to make out whether people were calling for help or whether the wind was wailing in the chimney.  But the wind tore at the roof, tapped at the paper on the window, and brought a distinct shout of “Help!”

“Talk of your murderers,” said the hunter, turning pale and getting up.  “Someone is being robbed!”

“Lord have mercy on us,” whispered the forester, and he, too, turned pale and got up.

The hunter looked aimlessly out of window and walked up and down the hut.

“What a night, what a night!” he muttered.  “You can’t see your hand before your face!  The very time for a robbery.  Do you hear?  There is a shout again.”

The forester looked at the ikon and from the ikon turned his eyes upon the hunter, and sank on to the bench, collapsing like a man terrified by sudden bad news.

“Good Christian,” he said in a tearful voice, “you might go into the passage and bolt the door.  And we must put out the light.”

“What for?”

“By ill-luck they may find their way here. . . .  Oh, our sins!”

“We ought to be going, and you talk of bolting the door!  You are a clever one!  Are you coming?”

The hunter threw his gun over his shoulder and picked up his cap.

“Get ready, take your gun.  Hey, Flerka, here,” he called to his dog.  “Flerka!”

A dog with long frayed ears, a mongrel between a setter and a house-dog, came out from under the bench.  He stretched himself by his master’s feet and wagged his tail.

“Why are you sitting there?” cried the hunter to the forester.  “You mean to say you are not going?”

“Where?”

“To help!”