ing at the door of his small
shop. He was apparently idle. He never sold vodka, and the majority of
the villagers were in one of the three thriving "kabaks" which drove a
famous trade in strong drink and weak tea. It was a very hot evening.
The sun had set in a pink haze which was now turning to an unhealthy
gray, and spreading over the face of the western sky like the shadow of
death across the human countenance.

The starosta shook his head forebodingly. It was cholera weather.
Cholera had come to Osterno. Had come, the starosta thought, to stay. It
had settled down in Osterno, and nothing but the winter frosts would
kill it, when hunger-typhus would undoubtedly succeed it.

Therefore the starosta shook his head at the sunset, and forgot to
regret the badness of the times from a commercial point of view. He had
done all he could. He had notified to the Zemstvo the condition of his
village. He had made the usual appeal for help, which had been forwarded
in the usual way to Tver, where it had apparently been received with the
usual philosophic silence.

But Michael Roon had also telegraphed to Karl Steinmetz, and since the
despatch of this message had the starosta dropped into the habit of
standing at his doorway in the evening, with his hands clasped behind
his back and his beady black eyes bent westward along the prince's
high-road.

On the particular evening with which we have to do the beady eyes looked
not in vain; for presently, far along the road, appeared a black speck
like an insect crawling over the face of a map.

"Ah!" said the starosta. "Ah! he never fails."

Presently a neighbor dropped in to buy some of the dried leaf which the
starosta, honest tradesman, called tea. He found the purveyor of
Cathay's produce at the door.

"Ah!" he said, in a voice thick with vodka. "You see something on the
road?"

"Yes."

"A cart?"

"No, a carriage. It moves too quickly."

A strange expression came over the peasant's face, at no time a pleasing
physiognomy. The bloodshot eyes flared up suddenly like a smouldering
flame in brown paper. The unsteady, drink-sodden lips twitched. The man
threw up his shaggy head, upon which hair and beard mingled in unkempt
confusion. He glared along the road with eyes and face aglow with a
sullen, beast-like hatred.

"A carriage! Then it is for the castle."

"Possibly," answered the starosta.

"The prince--curse him, curse his mother's soul, curse his wife's
offspring!"