"Certainly, for the bread has a smell of meat.... Yes, and he has more bread, I'll be bound," said "the student," and he added very quietly, "if only he hadn't a revolver!" "Who is he, I wonder?" "A hound!" said the soldier decidedly. We sat together in a close group and cast sidelong glances in the direction where sat our benefactor with his revolver. Not a sound, not a sign of life now proceeded from that quarter. Night had assembled her dark forces all around us. Mortally still it was in the steppe there--we could hear each other's breath. Now and then from somewhither resounded the melancholy whistle of the _suslik_[3].... The stars, the bright flowers of heaven, shone down upon us ... We wanted more to eat. [3] The earless marmot of the steppe. With pride I say it--I was neither better nor worse than my casual comrades on this somewhat strange night. I persuaded them to get up and go towards this man. We need not touch him, but we would eat everything we found upon him. He would fire--let him! Out of three of us only one could fall, even if one fell at all, and even if one of us did fall, a mere revolver bullet would scarcely be the death of him. "Let us go," said the soldier, leaping to his feet. "The student" rose to his feet more slowly than the soldier. And we went, we almost ran. "The student" kept well behind us. "Comrade!" cried the soldier reproachfully. There met us a dull report and the sharp sound of a snapping trigger. There was a flash and the dry report of a firearm. "It is over!" yelled the soldier joyfully, and with a single bound he was level with the man. "Now, you devil, I am going to have it out with you." "The student" flung himself on the knapsack. "The devil" fell from his knees on to his back, and stretching out his arms gave forth a choking sound. "What the deuce!" cried the astonished soldier in the very act of raising his foot to give the man a kick. "What is he groaning for like that? Hie! Hie you! What's the matter? Have you shot yourself or what?" "There's meat and some pancakes and bread--a whole lot, my brothers!"--and the voice of "the student" crowed with delight. "But what the deuce ails him?--he is at the last gasp! Come then, let us eat, my friends!" cried the soldier. I had taken the revolver out of the hand of the man who had ceased to groan, and now lay motionless. There was only a single cartridge in the cartridge-box. Again we ate--ate in silence. The man also lay there in silence, not moving a limb. We paid no attention to him whatever. "My brothers, I suppose you have done all this simply for the sake of bread?" suddenly exclaimed a hoarse and tremulous voice. We all started. "The student" even swallowed a crumb, and bending low towards the ground fell a coughing. The soldier in the midst of his chewing became abusive.