Now he fully understood what was to happen.  But it was a thing so out of the ordinary, so horrible, that he fancied he was dreaming.

“It’s so bright, so beautiful—­the snow, the field, the woods, the sky.  The breath of spring is upon everything.  Yet people are going to be killed.  How can it be?  Impossible!” So his thoughts ran in confusion.  He had the sensation of a man suddenly gone insane, who finds he sees, hears and feels what he is not accustomed to, and ought not hear, see and feel.

The three men in black stood next to one another hard by the railing, two quite close together, the short one some distance away.

“Officer!” one of them cried in a desperate voice—­Andersen could not see which it was—­“God sees us!  Officer!”

Eight soldiers dismounted quickly, their spurs and sabres catching awkwardly.  Evidently they were in a hurry, as if doing a thief’s job.

Several seconds passed in silence until the soldiers placed themselves in a row a few feet from the black figures and levelled their guns.  In doing so one soldier knocked his cap from his head.  He picked it up and put it on again without brushing off the wet snow.

The officer’s mount still kept dancing on one spot with his ears pricked, while the other horses, also with sharp ears erect to catch every sound, stood motionless looking at the men in black, their long wise heads inclined to one side.

“Spare the boy at least!” another voice suddenly pierced the air.  “Why kill a child, damn you!  What has the child done?”

“Ivanov, do what I told you to do,” thundered the officer, drowning the other voice.  His face turned as scarlet as a piece of red flannel.

There followed a scene savage and repulsive in its gruesomeness.  The short figure in black, with the light hair and the rosy ears, uttered a wild shriek in a shrill child’s tones and reeled to one side.  Instantly it was caught up by two or three soldiers.  But the boy began to struggle, and two more soldiers ran up.

“Ow-ow-ow-ow!” the boy cried.  “Let me go, let me go!  Ow-ow!”

His shrill voice cut the air like the yell of a stuck porkling not quite done to death.  Suddenly he grew quiet.  Some one must have struck him.  An unexpected, oppressive silence ensued.  The boy was being pushed forward.  Then there came a deafening report.  Andersen started back all in a tremble.  He saw distinctly, yet vaguely as in a dream, the dropping of two dark bodies, the flash of pale sparks, and a light smoke rising in the clean, bright atmosphere.  He saw the soldiers hastily mounting their horses without even glancing at the bodies.  He saw them galloping along the muddy road, their arms clanking, their horses’ hoofs clattering.

He saw all this, himself now standing in the middle of the road, not knowing when and why he had jumped from behind the haystack.  He was deathly pale.  His face was covered with dank sweat, his body was aquiver.  A physical sadness smote and tortured him.  He could not make out the nature of the feeling.  It was akin to extreme sickness, though far more nauseating and terrible.