smacking them, and would spit on the
floor, hissingly, through his teeth. When he spoke, he did not finish
his words, so rapidly did his thoughts run that his tongue was unable to
compass them.

One day the chief warden, accompanied by a soldier, entered his cell. He
looked askance at the floor and said gruffly:

"Look! How dirty he has made it!"

Tsiganok retorted quickly:

"You've made the whole world dirty, you fat-face, and yet I haven't said
anything to you. What brings you here?"

The warden, speaking as gruffly as before, asked him whether he would
act as executioner. Tsiganok burst out laughing, showing his teeth.

"You can't find any one else? That's good! Go ahead, hang! Ha! ha! ha!
The necks are there, the rope is there, but there is nobody to string it
up. By God! that's good!"

"You'll save your neck if you do it."

"Of course--I couldn't hang them if I were dead. Well said, you fool!"

"Well, what do you say? Is it all the same to you?"

"And how do you hang them here? I suppose they're choked on the sly."

"No, with music," snarled the warden.

"Well, what a fool! Of course it can be done with music. This way!" and
he began to sing, with a bold and daring swing.

"You have lost your wits, my friend," said the warden. "What do you say?
Speak sensibly."

Tsiganok grinned.

"How eager you are! Come another time and I'll tell you."

After that, into that chaos of bright, yet incomplete images which
oppressed Tsiganok by their impetuosity, a new image came--how good
it would be to become a hangman in a red shirt. He pictured to himself
vividly a square crowded with people, a high scaffold, and he, Tsiganok,
in a red shirt walking about upon the scaffold with an ax. The sun shone
overhead, gaily flashing from the ax, and everything was so gay and
bright that even the man whose head was soon to be chopped off was
smiling. And behind the crowd, wagons and the heads of horses could be
seen--the peasants had come from the village; and beyond them, further,
he could see the village itself.

"Ts-akh!"

Tsiganok smacked his lips, licking them, and spat. And suddenly he felt
as though a fur cap had been pushed over his head to his very mouth--it
became black and stifling, and his heart again became like a cake of
unmelting ice, sending a slight, dry shiver through his whole body.

The warden came in twice again, and Tsiganok, showing his teeth, said:

"How eager you are! Come in again!"

Fin