at once there was a squall of wind, so violent that it almost
snatched away Yegorushka's bundle and mat; the mat fluttered in all
directions and flapped on the bale and on Yegorushka's face. The
wind dashed whistling over the steppe, whirled round in disorder
and raised such an uproar from the grass that neither the thunder
nor the creaking of the wheels could be heard; it blew from the
black storm-cloud, carrying with it clouds of dust and the scent
of rain and wet earth. The moonlight grew mistier, as it were
dirtier; the stars were even more overcast; and clouds of dust could
be seen hurrying along the edge of the road, followed by their
shadows. By now, most likely, the whirlwind eddying round and lifting
from the earth dust, dry grass and feathers, was mounting to the
very sky; uprooted plants must have been flying by that very black
storm-cloud, and how frightened they must have been! But through
the dust that clogged the eyes nothing could be seen but the flash
of lightning.

Yegorushka, thinking it would pour with rain in a minute, knelt up
and covered himself with the mat.

"Panteley-ey!" someone shouted in the front. "A. . . a. . . va!"

"I can't!" Panteley answered in a loud high voice. "A . . . a
. . . va! Arya . . . a!"

There was an angry clap of thunder, which rolled across the sky
from right to left, then back again, and died away near the foremost
waggon.

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth," whispered Yegorushka, crossing
himself. "Fill heaven and earth with Thy glory."

The blackness in the sky yawned wide and breathed white fire. At
once there was another clap of thunder. It had scarcely ceased when
there was a flash of lightning so broad that Yegorushka suddenly
saw through a slit in the mat the whole highroad to the very horizon,
all the waggoners and even Kiruha's waistcoat. The black shreds had
by now moved upwards from the left, and one of them, a coarse,
clumsy monster like a claw with fingers, stretched to the moon.
Yegorushka made up his mind to shut his eyes tight, to pay no
attention to it, and to wait till it was all over.

The rain was for some reason long in coming. Yegorushka peeped out
from the mat in the hope that perhaps the storm-cloud was passing
over. It was fearfully dark. Yegorushka could see neither Panteley,
nor the bale of wool, nor himself; he looked sideways towards the
place where the moon had lately been, but there was the same black
darkness there as over the w