hunder
crashed among the mountains, and sent its hundred-voiced echoes rolling
over land and sea. In his consternation, Kalinin opened his mouth until
a set of fine, even teeth became bared to view. Then, with repeated
crossings of himself, he muttered.

"Oh dread God, Oh beneficent God, Oh God who sittest on high, and on a
golden throne, and under a gilded canopy, do Thou now punish Satan,
lest he overwhelm me in the midst of my sins!"

Whereafter, turning a small and terrified face in my direction, and
blinking his bright eyes, he added with hurried diction:

"Come, brother! Come! Let us run on ahead, for thunderstorms are my
bane. Yes, let us run with all possible speed, run ANYWHERE, for soon
the rain will be pouring down, and these parts are full of lurking
fever."

Off, therefore, we started, with the wind smiting us behind, and our
kettles and teapots jangling, and my wallet, in particular, thumping me
about the middle of the body as though it had been wielding a large,
soft fist. Yet a far cry would it be to the mountains, nor was any
dwelling in sight, while ever and anon branches caught at our clothes,
and stones leapt aloft under our tread, and the air grew steadily
darker, and the mountains seemed to begin gliding towards us.

Once more from the black cloud-masses, heaven belched a fiery dart
which caused the sea to scintillate with blue sapphires in response,
and, seemingly, to recoil from the shore as the earth shook, and the
mountain defiles emitted a gigantic scrunching sound of their rock-hewn
jaws.

"Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One! Oh Holy One!" screamed Kalinin as he dived
into the bushes.

In the rear, the waves lashed us as though they had a mind to arrest
our progress; from the gloom to our front came a sort of scraping and
rasping; long black hands seemed to wave over our heads; just at the
point where the mountain crests lay swathed in their dense coverlet of
cloud, there rumbled once more the deafening iron chariot of the
thunder-god; more and more frequently flashed the lightning as the
earth rang, and rifts cleft by the blue glare disclosed, amid the
obscurity, great trees that were rustling and rocking and, to all
appearances, racing headlong before the scourge of a cold, slanting
rain.

The occasion was a harassing but bracing one, for as the fine bands of
rain beat upon our faces, our bodies felt filled with a heady vigour of
a kind to fit us to run indefinitely--at all events to run u