e did so, his
handsome eyes gleamed with just such a reverent affection, such a
prayerful kindliness, as must have lurked in the eyes of primeval,
nomadic man in the presence of the dancing, beneficent source of light
and heat.

"At least I am sorry for such fellows," Vasili continued. "Aye, the
very thought of the many, many folk who have come to nothing! The very
thought of it! Terrible, terrible!"

A touch of daylight was still lingering on the tops of the mountains,
but in the defile itself night was beginning to loom, and to lull all
things to sleep--to incline one neither to speak oneself nor to listen
to the dull clamour of those others on the opposite bank, where even to
the murmur of the rivulet the distasteful din seemed to communicate a
note of anger.

There the crowd had lit a huge bonfire, and then added to it a second
one which, crackling, hissing, and emitting coils of bluish-tinted
smoke, had fallen to vying with its fellow in lacing the foam of the
rivulet with muslin-like patterns in red. As the mass of dark figures
surged between the two flares an hilarious voice shouted to us the
invitation:

"Come over here, you! Don't be backward! Come over here, I say!"

Upon which followed a clatter as of the smashing of a drinking-vessel,
while from the red-bearded muzhik came a thick, raucous shout of:

"These fellows needed to be taught a lesson!"

Almost at the same moment the foreman of the carpenters broke his way
clear of the crowd, and, carefully crossing the rivulet by the
stepping-stones which we had constructed, squatted down upon his heels
by the margin, and with much puffing and blowing fell to rinsing his
face, a face which in the murky firelight looked flushed and red.

"I think that someone has given him a blow," hazarded Silantiev sotto
voce.

And when the foreman rose to approach us this proved to be the case,
for then we saw that dripping from his nose, and meandering over his
moustache and soaked white beard, there was a stream of dark blood
which had spotted and streaked his shirt-front.

"Peace to this gathering!" he said gravely as, pressing his left hand
to his stomach, he bowed.

"And we pray your indulgence," was Silantiev's response, though he did
not raise his eyes as he spoke. "Pray be seated."

Small, withered, and, for all but his blood-stained shirt, scrupulously
clean, the old man reminded me of certain pictures of old-time hermits,
and the more so since either pai