kept shouting to them, while Yegorushka had left off
crying, and gazed about him listlessly. The heat and the tedium of
the steppes overpowered him. He felt as though he had been travelling
and jolting up and down for a very long time, that the sun had been
baking his back a long time. Before they had gone eight miles he
began to feel "It must be time to rest." The geniality gradually
faded out of his uncle's face and nothing else was left but the air
of business reserve; and to a gaunt shaven face, especially when
it is adorned with spectacles and the nose and temples are covered
with dust, this reserve gives a relentless, inquisitorial appearance.
Father Christopher never left off gazing with wonder at God's world,
and smiling. Without speaking, he brooded over something pleasant
and nice, and a kindly, genial smile remained imprinted on his face.
It seemed as though some nice and pleasant thought were imprinted
on his brain by the heat.

"Well, Deniska, shall we overtake the waggons to-day?" asked
Kuzmitchov.

Deniska looked at the sky, rose in his seat, lashed at his horses
and then answered:

"By nightfall, please God, we shall overtake them."

There was a sound of dogs barking. Half a dozen steppe sheep-dogs,
suddenly leaping out as though from ambush, with ferocious howling
barks, flew to meet the chaise. All of them, extraordinarily furious,
surrounded the chaise, with their shaggy spider-like muzzles and
their eyes red with anger, and jostling against one another in their
anger, raised a hoarse howl. They were filled with passionate hatred
of the horses, of the chaise, and of the human beings, and seemed
ready to tear them into pieces. Deniska, who was fond of teasing
and beating, was delighted at the chance of it, and with a malignant
expression bent over and lashed at the sheep-dogs with his whip.
The brutes growled more than ever, the horses flew on; and Yegorushka,
who had difficulty in keeping his seat on the box, realized, looking
at the dogs' eyes and teeth, that if he fell down they would instantly
tear him to bits; but he felt no fear and looked at them as malignantly
as Deniska, and regretted that he had no whip in his hand.

The chaise came upon a flock of sheep.

"Stop!" cried Kuzmitchov. "Pull up! Woa!"

Deniska threw his whole body backwards and pulled up the horses.

"Come here!" Kuzmitchov shouted to the shepherd. "Call off the dogs,
curse them!"

The old shepherd, tattered and bare