"I should say so," replied Yourii, displaying his well-filled bag.

"Ah! you're a better shot than I am," said Riasantzeff pleasantly.

Yourii was delighted by such praise, although he always professed to care nothing for physical strength or skill. "I don't know about better," he observed carelessly, "It was just luck."

By the time they reached the hut it was quite dark. The melon-field was immersed in gloom, and only the foremost rows of melons shimmered white in the firelight, casting long shadows. The horse stood, snorting, beside the hut, where a bright little fire of dried steppe-gra.s.s burnt and crackled. They could hear men talking and women laughing, and one voice, mellow and cheery in tone, seemed familiar to Yourii.

"Why, it's Sanine," said Riasantzeff, in astonishment. "How did he get here?"

They approached the fire. Grey-bearded Kousma, seated beside it, looked up, and nodded to welcome them.

"Any luck?" he asked, in his deep ba.s.s voice, through a drooping moustache.

"Just a bit," replied Riasantzeff.

Sanine, sitting on a huge pumpkin, also raised his head and smiled at them.

"How is it that you are here?" asked Riasantzeff.

"Oh! Kousma Prokorovitch and I are old friends," explained Sanine, smiling the more.

Kousma laughed, showing the yellow stumps of his decayed teeth as he slapped Sanine's knee good-naturedly with his rough hand.

"Yes, yes," he said. "Sit down here, Anatole Pavlovitch, and taste this melon. And you, my young master, what is your name?"

"Yourii Nicolaijevitch," replied Yourii, pleasantly.

He felt somewhat embarra.s.sed, but he at once took a liking to this gentle old peasant with his friendly speech, half Russian, half dialect.

"Yourii Nicolaijevitch! Aha! We must make each other's acquaintance, eh? Sit you down, Yourii Nicolaijevitch."

Yourii and Riasantzeff sat down by the fire on two big pumpkins.

"Now, then show us what you have shot," said Kousma.

A heap of dead birds fell out of the game-bags, and the ground was dabbled with their blood. In the flickering firelight they had a weird, unpleasant look. The blood was almost black, and the claws seemed to move. Kousma took up a duck, and felt beneath its wings.

"That's a fat one," he said approvingly. "You might spare me a brace, Anatole Pavlovitch. What will you do with such a lot?"

"Have them all!" exclaimed Yourii, blushing.

"Why all? Come, come, you're too generous," laughed the old man. "I'll just have a brace, to show that there's no ill-feeling."

Other peasants and their wives now approached the fire, but, dazzled by the blaze, Yourii could not plainly distinguish them. First one and then another face swiftly emerged from the gloom, and then vanished.

Sanine, frowning, regarded the dead birds, and, turning away, suddenly rose. The sight of these beautiful creatures lying there in blood and dust, with broken wings, was distasteful to him.

Yourii watched everything with great interest as he greedily ate large, luscious slices of a ripe melon which Kousma cut off with his pocket- knife that had a yellow bone handle.

"Eat, Yourii Nicolaijevitch; this melon's good," he said. "I know your little sister, Ludmilla Nicolaijevna, and your father, too. Eat, and enjoy it."

Everything pleased Yourii; the smell of the peasants, an odour as of newly-baked bread and sheepskins; the bright blaze of the fire; the gigantic pumpkin upon which he sat; and the glimpse of Kousma's face when he looked downwards, for when the old man raised his head it was hidden in the gloom and only his eyes gleamed. Overhead there was darkness now, which made the lighted place seem pleasant and comfortable. Looking upwards, Yourii could at first see nothing, and then suddenly the calm, s.p.a.cious heaven appeared and the distant stars.

He felt, however, somewhat embarra.s.sed, not knowing what to say to these peasants. The others, Kousma, Sanine, and Riasantzeff, chatted frankly and simply to them about this or that, never troubling to choose some special theme for talk.

"Well, how's the land?" he asked, when there was a short pause in the conversation, though he felt that the question sounded forced and out of place.

Kousma looked up, and answered:

"We must wait, just wait a while, and see." Then he began talking about the melon-fields and other personal matters, Yourii feeling only more and more embarra.s.sed, although he rather liked listening to it all.

Footsteps were heard approaching. A little red dog with a curly white tail appeared in the light, sniffing at Yourii and Riasantzeff, and rubbing itself against Sanine's knees, who patted its rough coat. It was followed by a little, old man with a spa.r.s.e beard and small bright eyes. He carried a rusty single-barrelled gun.

"It is grandfather, our guardian," said Kousma. The old man sat down on the ground, deposited his weapon, and looked hard at Yourii and Riasantzeff.

"Been out shooting; yes, yes!" he mumbled, showing his shrivelled, discoloured gums. "He! He! Kousma, it's time to boil the potatoes! He!

He!"

Riasantzeff picked up the old fellow's flint-lock, and laughingly showed it to Yourii. It was a rusty old barrel-loader, very heavy, with wire wound round it.

"I say," said he, "what sort of a gun do you call this? Aren't you afraid to shoot with it?"

"He! He! I nearly shot myself with it once! Stepan Schapka, he told me that one could shoot without ... caps? He! He! ... without caps! He said that if there were any sulphur left in the gun one could fire without a cap. So I put the loaded rifle on my knee like this, and fired it off at full c.o.c.k with my finger, like this, see? Then bang! it went off! Nearly killed myself! He! He! Loaded the rifle, and bang!!

Nearly killed myself!"

They all laughed, and there were tears of mirth in Yourii's eyes, so absurd did the little man seem with his tufted grey beard and his sunken jaws.

The old fellow laughed, too, till his little eyes watered. "Very nearly killed myself! He! He!"

In the darkness, and beyond the circle of light, one could hear laughter, and the voices of girls whom shyness had kept at a distance.

A few feet away from the fire, and in quite a different place from where Yourii imagined him to be seated, Sanine struck a match. In the reddish flare of it Yourii saw his calm, friendly eyes, and beside him a young face whose soft eyes beneath their dark brows looked up at Sanine with simple joy.

Riasantzeff, as he winked to Kousma, said:

"Grandfather, hadn't you better keep an eye on your granddaughter, eh?"

"What's the good!" replied Kousma, with a careless gesture. "Youth is youth."

"He! He!" laughed the old man in his turn, as with his fingers he plucked a red-hot coal from the fire.

Sanine's laugh was heard in the darkness. The girls may have felt ashamed, for they had moved away, and their voices were scarcely audible.

"It is time to go," said Riasantzeff, as he got up. "Thank you, Kousma."

"Not at all," replied the other, as with his sleeve he brushed away the black melon-pips that had stuck to his grey beard. He shook hands with both of them, and Yourii again felt a certain repugnance to the touch of his rough, bony hand. As they retreated from the fire, the gloom seemed less intense. Above were the cold, glittering stars and the vast dome of heaven, serenely fair. The group by the fire, the horses, and the pile of melons all became blacker against the light.

Yourii tripped over a pumpkin and nearly fell.

"Look out!" said Sanine. "Good-bye!"