the water, he lay with his head and breast
resting against the stepping-stones.

"You have killed him!" next I shouted--not because I believed the
statement to be true, but because I had a mind to frighten into
sobriety the men who were impeding me.

Upon this someone exclaimed in a faltering, sobered tone:

"Surely not?"

As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he passed me by with a
braggart, resentful shout of:

"Well? He had no right to insult me. Why should he have said that I was
a nuisance to the whole country?"

And someone else shouted:

"Where is the ex-soldier? Who is the watchman here?"

"Bring a light," was the cry of a third.

Yet all these voices were more sober, more subdued, more restrained
than they had been, and presently a little muzhik whose poll was
swathed in a red handkerchief stooped and raised Silantiev's head. But
almost as instantly he let it fall again, and, dipping his hands into
the water, said gravely:

"You have killed him. He is dead."

At the moment I did not believe the words; but presently, as I stood
watching how the water coursed between Silantiev's legs, and turned
them this way and that, and made them stir as though they were striving
to divest themselves of the shabby old boots, I realised with all my
being that the hands which were resting in mine were the hands of a
corpse. And, true enough, when I released them they slapped down upon
the surface like wet dish-cloths.

Until now, about a dozen men had been standing on the bank to observe
what was toward, but as soon as the little muzhik's words rang out
these men recoiled, and, with jostlings, began to vent, in subdued,
uneasy tones, cries of:

"Who was it first struck him?"

"This will lose us our jobs."

"It was the soldier that first started the racket."

"Yes, that is true."

"Let us go and denounce him."

As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he cried:

"I swear on my honour, mates, that the affair was only a quarrel."

"To hit a man with a bludgeon is more than a quarrel."

"It was a stone that was used, not a bludgeon."

"The soldier ought to--"

A woman's high-pitched voice broke in with a plaintive cry of:

"Good Lord! Always something happens to us!"

As for myself, I felt stunned and hurt as I seated myself upon the
stepping-stones; and though everything was plain to my sight, nothing
was plain to my understanding, while in my breast a strange emptiness
was present, save that