Numbers of people assembled in the valley, as usual, but the noise of their talking did not drown the roar of the river. The youths did not dance at the meeting place, no reindeer were to be seen racing. There was no laughter, no singing. Nor did the counsels take place in common. The men assembled in small groups in separate tents, with a dull look on their sad faces. They talked without animation; jokes and laughter, so beloved by the Tungus, were checked by a general sense of depression, and only rarely indulged in. However, they did not disperse, but waited impatiently for the coming of old Seltichan, without whom they would not have dared to have settled any important matters. But the old man did not arrive. 'The old man doesn't come, he doesn't come,--and he won't come,' muttered one of the group, sitting among his companions, who were circling round the fire. He was a stout man of possibly fifty years of age, unlike a Tungus, and dressed like a Yakut, with a silver Yakut belt. He had the puffed-up air of a rich man knowing his own importance. 'Who cares to visit the dying?' he added, sulkily. '_You_ didn't try to escape your fate,' gloomily answered a poorly dressed old man, as tawny as copper, and as wrinkled as moss, who was sitting on the opposite side of the fire. 'That is true!' a third repeated. 'You don't try to escape, you don't hide. Didn't I run away, didn't I hide? And what came of it?' and, with emotion, he began for the hundredth time to relate the story of his misfortune. Each time it was received with equal attention. 'When the news of the disaster came I was on the summit of Bur-Janga, and was just getting ready to go down; but I hesitated, and delayed my start. For a long while the God had mercy on me;--I know that!--till one night I awoke terrified, with a beating heart. I listened:--I heard what seemed like a shot, and loud calling. I drew my head from under the cover, and again I seemed to hear a noise in the wood, like distant shooting. The dogs whined and howled, as if they had noticed a bear. I went out of the tent, and looked. The moon was shining, and an immense shadow passed into the wood from the bottom of the valley, avoiding the hills. The dogs fell at my feet, and I covered my eyes with my hand, unable to look. My heart beat in my breast like a frightened bird, my feet were rigid with terror.' 'O-oh!' echoed the sighs of the listeners.