Tinowitz ended by demanding time to think it over. David was to call the next day. When, after a sleepless night on the stove, he betook himself to the corn-factor's house, he found it barred and shuttered. The neighbours reported that Tinowitz had gone off on sudden business, taking his wife and daughters with him for a little jaunt. IV The flight of Tinowitz brought two compensations, however. David was promoted from the stove to the bedroom. For the lodger he replaced had likewise departed hurriedly, and when it transpired that the landlord had betrothed this young man to the second of the Tinowitz girls, David divined that the corn-factor had made sure of a son-in-law. His other compensation was to find in the remaining bed a strapping young Jew named Ezekiel Leven, who had come up from an outlying village for the military lottery, and who proved to be a carl after his own heart. Half the night the young heroes planned the deeds of derringdo they might do for their people. Ezekiel Leven was indeed an ideal lieutenant, for he belonged to one of the rare farming colonies, and was already handy with his gun. He had even some kinsfolk in Milovka, and by their aid the Rabbi and a few householders were hurriedly prevailed upon to assemble in the bedroom on a business declared important. Ezekiel himself must, unfortunately, be away at the drawing, but he promised to hasten back to the meeting. Each member strolled in casually, ordered a glass of tea, and drifted upstairs. The landlord, uneasily sniffing peril and profit, and dismally apprehending pistol lessons, left the inn to his wife, and stole up likewise to the fateful bedroom. Here, after protesting fearfully that they would ruin him by this conspirative meeting, he added that he was not out of sympathy with the times, and volunteered to stand sentinel. Accordingly, he was posted at the ragged window-curtain, where, with excess of caution, he signalled whenever he saw a Christian, in uniform or no. At every signal David's oratory ceased as suddenly as if it had been turned off at the main, and the gaberdined figures, distributed over the two beds and the one chair, gripped one another nervously. But David was used to oratory under difficulties. He lived on the same terms with the police as the most desperate criminals, and a foreigner who should have witnessed the secret meetings at which tactics were discussed, arms distributed, scouts despatched, and night-watches posted, would have imagined him engaged in a rebellion instead of in an attempt to strengthen the forces of law and order.