thing else. It was just as unpleasant
and repugnant to take a cigarette at which he looked, as though it had
already been in his mouth. There was a certain constant restlessness in
him, now twisting him like a rag, now throwing him about like a body of
coiling live wires. And he drank water almost by the bucket.

To all questions during the trial he answered shortly, firmly, jumping
up quickly, and at times he seemed to answer even with pleasure.

"Correct!" he would say.

Sometimes he emphasized it.

"Cor-r-rect!"

At one time, suddenly, when they were speaking of something that would
hardly have seemed to suggest it, he jumped to his feet and asked the
presiding judge:

"Will you allow me to whistle?"

"What for?" asked the judge, surprised.

"They said that I gave the signal to my comrades. I would like to show
you how. It is very interesting."

The judge consented, somewhat wonderingly. Tsiganok quickly placed
four fingers in his mouth, two fingers of each hand, rolled his eyes
fiercely--and then the dead air of the courtroom was suddenly rent by a
real, wild, murderer's whistle--at which frightened horses leap and rear
on their hind legs and human faces involuntarily blanch. The mortal
anguish of him who is to be assassinated, the wild joy of the murderer,
the dreadful warning, the call, the gloom and loneliness of a stormy
autumn night--all this rang in his piercing shriek, which was neither
human nor beastly.

The presiding officer shouted--then waved his arm at Tsiganok,
and Tsiganok obediently became silent. And, like an artist who had
triumphantly performed a difficult aria, he sat down, wiped his wet
fingers upon his coat, and surveyed those present with an air of
satisfaction.

"What a robber!" said one of the judges, rubbing his ear.

Another one, however, with a wild Russian beard, but with the eyes of a
Tartar, like those of Tsiganok, gazed pensively above Tsiganok's head,
then smiled and remarked:

"It is indeed interesting."

With light hearts, without mercy, without the slightest pangs of
conscience, the judges brought out against Tsiganok a verdict of death.

"Correct!" said Tsiganok, when the verdict was pronounced. "In the open
field and on a cross-beam! Correct!"

And turning to the convoy, he hurled with bravado:

"Well, are we not going? Come on, you sour-coat. And hold your gun--I
might take it away from you!"

The soldier looked at him sternly, with fear, exchanged glanc