lage for each of your
borzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours
against one another, you two, and I'll look on!"

"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugayushka!" he added, involuntarily by
this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this
red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly men and
her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by it.

The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the
gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off
on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the
gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately.

"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward the
whip who had sighted the hare.

But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming
next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed
downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that
were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt,
who had been moving slowly, shouted, "Stop!" calling in the hounds,
while the borzoi whips, with a cry of "A-tu!" galloped across the field
setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilagin, Nicholas, Natasha,
and "Uncle" flew, reckless of where and how they went, seeing only the
borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even for an instant
of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and swift one. When
he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his ears listening to
the shouting and trampling that resounded from all sides at once. He
took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois gain on him,
and, finally having chosen his direction and realized his danger, laid
back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble,
but in front of him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft.
The two borzois of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the
nearest, were the first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far
before Ilagin's red-spotted Erza passed them, got within a length, flew
at the hare with terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking
she had seized him, rolled over like a ball. The hare arched his
back and bounded off yet more swiftly. From behind Erza rushed the
broad-haunched, black-spotted Milka and began rapidly gaining on the
hare.

"Milashka, dear!" rose Nich