Part 61

"Then you must not--someone might break into the church. Go, rather, to the Ataman [Cossack headman or mayor], and you will be billeted among the huts."

"It is a matter of no consequence," Konev remarks as he paces beside me. "Yet--"

"They seem to be taking us for robbers," is my interruption.

"As is everywhere the way," he comments. "It is but one thing more laid to our charge. Caution decides always that a stranger is a thief."

In front of us walks the woman from Riazan, in company with the young fellow of the bloated features. He is downcast of mien, and at length mutters something which I cannot catch, but in answer to which she tosses her head, and says in a distinct, maternal tone:

"You are too young to associate with such brutes."

The bell of the church is slowly beating, and from the huts there keep coming neat old men and women who make the hitherto deserted street assume a brisk appearance, and the squat huts take on a welcoming air.

In a resonant, girlish voice there meets our ears:

"Ma-am! Ma-amka! Where is the key of the green box? I want my ribands!"

While in answer to the bell's summons, the oxen low a deep echo.

The wind has fallen, but reddish clouds still are gliding over the hamlet, and the mountain peaks blushing until they seem, thawing, to be sending streams of golden, liquid fire on to the steppes, where, as though cast in stone, a stork, standing on one leg, is listening, seemingly, to the rustling of the heat-exhausted herbage.

* * * * *

In the forecourt of the Ataman's hut we are deprived of our passports, while two of our number, found to be without such documents, are led away to a night's lodging in a dark storehouse in a corner of the premises. Everything is executed quietly enough, and without the least fuss, purely as a matter of routine; yet Konev mutters, as dejectedly he contemplates the darkening sky:

"What a surprising thing, to be sure!"

"What is?"

"A passport. Surely a decent, peaceable man ought to be able to travel WITHOUT a passport? So long as he be harmless, let him--"

"You are not harmless," with angry emphasis the woman from Riazan interposes.

Konev closes his eyes with a smile, and says nothing more.

Almost until the vigil service is over are we kept kicking our heels about that forecourt, like sheep in a slaughter-house. Then Konev, myself, the two women, and the fat-faced young fellow are led away towards the outskirts of the village, and allotted an empty hut with broken-down walls and a cracked window.

"No going out will be permitted," says the Cossack who has conducted us thither. "Else you will be arrested."

"Then give us a morsel of bread," Konev says with a stammer. "Have you done any work here?" the Cossack inquires.

"Yes--a little."

"For me?"

"No. It did not so happen."

"When it does so happen I will give you some bread."

And like a water-butt the fat kindly-looking man goes rolling out of the yard.

"What else was to be expected?" grumbles Konev with his eyebrows elevated to the middle of his forehead. "The folk hereabouts are knaves. Ah, well!"

As for the women, they withdraw to the darkest corner of the hut, and lie down, while the young fellow disappears after probing the walls and floor, and returns with an armful of straw which he strews upon the hard, beaten clay. Then he stretches himself thereon with hands clasped behind his battered head.