gh afraid of being watched,
he got on all fours, and his hands slipping on the wet bale, he
turned back again.

"Trrah! tah! tah!" floated over his head, rolled under the waggons
and exploded "Kraa!"

Again he inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a new danger: three
huge giants with long pikes were following the waggon! A flash of
lightning gleamed on the points of their pikes and lighted up their
figures very distinctly. They were men of huge proportions, with
covered faces, bowed heads, and heavy footsteps. They seemed gloomy
and dispirited and lost in thought. Perhaps they were not following
the waggons with any harmful intent, and yet there was something
awful in their proximity.

Yegorushka turned quickly forward, and trembling all over cried:
"Panteley! Grandfather!"

"Trrah! tah! tah!" the sky answered him.

He opened his eyes to see if the waggoners were there. There were
flashes of lightning in two places, which lighted up the road to
the far distance, the whole string of waggons and all the waggoners.
Streams of water were flowing along the road and bubbles were
dancing. Panteley was walking beside the waggon; his tall hat and
his shoulder were covered with a small mat; his figure expressed
neither terror nor uneasiness, as though he were deafened by the
thunder and blinded by the lightning.

"Grandfather, the giants!" Yegorushka shouted to him in tears.

But the old man did not hear. Further away walked Emelyan. He was
covered from head to foot with a big mat and was triangular in
shape. Vassya, without anything over him, was walking with the same
wooden step as usual, lifting his feet high and not bending his
knees. In the flash of lightning it seemed as though the waggons
were not moving and the men were motionless, that Vassya's lifted
foot was rigid in the same position. . . .

Yegorushka called the old man once more. Getting no answer, he sat
motionless, and no longer waited for it all to end. He was convinced
that the thunder would kill him in another minute, that he would
accidentally open his eyes and see the terrible giants, and he left
off crossing himself, calling the old man and thinking of his mother,
and was simply numb with cold and the conviction that the storm
would never end.

But at last there was the sound of voices.

"Yegory, are you asleep?" Panteley cried below. "Get down! Is he
deaf, the silly little thing? . . ."

"Something like a storm!" said an unfamiliar bass voic