torture you seven ways at once. He’ll wind your guts round his wrist, and pull your veins out, an inch an hour.…And you talk of…pity! You’d better pray God that they do you in without any ‘pity,’ at one blow, and make an end of it! Oh, you! To the devil with you! Pity…faugh!”

He was indignant, this Jig-Leg.

His cutting voice, full of irony and contempt for his comrade, resounded through the wood, and the branches of the bushes waved with a gentle rustle, as if confirming his stern, just words.

Hopeful, crushed by these reproaches, was walking slowly, his legs trembling, his hands in the sleeves of his jacket, and his head bent low over his chest.

“Wait!” he said at last. “Never mind. I’ll be all right. We’ll get to the village.…I’ll go, I’ll go all alone.… You needn’t come at all.…I’ll nab the first thing that comes to hand.…Then we’ll make for home! We’ll get there and I’ll lie down! I’m feeling bad.”

He spoke almost inaudibly, gasping for breath, with a rattling and gurgling in his chest. Jig-Leg looked at him suspiciously, stopped, and was about to say something, but waved his arm, and without a word walked on again.

For a long time they walked in silence.

Nearby cocks were crowing; a dog howled; then the melancholy sound of the watchman’s bell floated towards them from a distant village church, and was swallowed by the silence of the forest. A large bird, like a big black spot, rushed into the murky moonlight, and in the ravine the sweep of wings made an eerie sound.

“It must be a crow, or a rook,” observed Jig-Leg.

“Listen,” said Hopeful, lowering himself heavily to the ground, “you go, I’ll stay here.…I can’t go on.… I’m choking.…I’m dizzy.”

“Well, that’s a fine thing!” said Jig-Leg crossly. “You really can’t go on?”

“I can’t.”

“Congratulations. Faugh!”

“I’m so weak.”

“Of course; we’ve been walking since morning on an empty stomach.”

“No, it’s not that.…I’m done for…look how the blood gushes!”

And Hopeful raised his hand to Jig-Leg’s face, all smeared with something dark. The other looked askance at the hand and, lowering his voice, asked:

“What are we going to do?”

“You go ahead.…I’ll stay here.…Maybe if I rest, I’ll feel better.”

“Where can I go? Suppose I go to the village and say there’s a man in the woods who’s taken sick?”

“Look out.…They’ll beat you up.”

“True enough. Just give them the chance.”