“Why can’t you get at it, grandfather?” asked the young man.

“I suppose there is some reason, the soldier didn’t say.  It is under a spell... you need a talisman.”

The old man spoke with warmth, as though he were pouring out his soul before the overseer.  He talked through his nose and, being unaccustomed to talk much and rapidly, stuttered; and, conscious of his defects, he tried to adorn his speech with gesticulations of the hands and head and thin shoulders, and at every movement his hempen shirt crumpled into folds, slipped upwards and displayed his back, black with age and sunburn.  He kept pulling it down, but it slipped up again at once.  At last, as though driven out of all patience by the rebellious shirt, the old man leaped up and said bitterly: 

“There is fortune, but what is the good of it if it is buried in the earth?  It is just riches wasted with no profit to anyone, like chaff or sheep’s dung, and yet there are riches there, lad, fortune enough for all the country round, but not a soul sees it!  It will come to this, that the gentry will dig it up or the government will take it away.  The gentry have begun digging the barrows....  They scented something!  They are envious of the peasants’ luck!  The government, too, is looking after itself.  It is written in the law that if any peasant finds the treasure he is to take it to the authorities!  I dare say, wait till you get it!  There is a brew but not for you!”

The old man laughed contemptuously and sat down on the ground.  The overseer listened with attention and agreed, but from his silence and the expression of his figure it was evident that what the old man told him was not new to him, that he had thought it all over long ago, and knew much more than was known to the old shepherd.

“In my day, I must own, I did seek for fortune a dozen times,” said the old man, scratching himself nervously.  “I looked in the right places, but I must have come on treasures under a charm.  My father looked for it, too, and my brother, too—­but not a thing did they find, so they died without luck.  A monk revealed to my brother Ilya—­the Kingdom of Heaven be his—­that in one place in the fortress of Taganrog there was a treasure under three stones, and that that treasure was under a charm, and in those days—­it was, I remember, in the year ’38—­an Armenian used to live at Matvyeev Barrow who sold talismans.  Ilya bought a talisman, took two other fellows with him, and went to Taganrog.  Only when he got to the place in the fortress, brother, there was a soldier with a gun, standing at the very spot....”

A sound suddenly broke on the still air, and floated in all directions over the steppe.  Something in the distance gave a menacing bang, crashed against stone, and raced over the steppe, uttering, “Tah! tah! tah! tah!” When the sound had died away the old man looked inquiringly at Panteley, who stood motionless and unconcerned.