And Lukáshka recommenced whistling, and went along the cordon pulling leaves and branches from the bushes as he went. Suddenly, catching sight of a smooth sapling, he drew the knife from the handle of his dagger and cut it down. “What a ramrod it will make,” he said, swinging the sapling till it whistled through the air. The Cossacks were sitting round a low Tartar table on the earthen floor of the clay-plastered outer room of the hut, when the question of whose turn it was to lie in ambush was raised. “Who is to go tonight?” shouted one of the Cossacks through the open door to the corporal in the next room. “Who is to go?” the corporal shouted back. “Uncle Burlák has been and Fómushkin too,” said he, not quite confidently. “You two had better go, you and Nazárka,” he went on, addressing Lukáshka. “And Ergushóv must go too; surely he has slept it off?” “You don’t sleep it off yourself so why should he?” said Nazárka in a subdued voice. The Cossacks laughed. Ergushóv was the Cossack who had been lying drunk and asleep near the hut. He had only that moment staggered into the room rubbing his eyes. Lukáshka had already risen and was getting his gun ready. “Be quick and go! Finish your supper and go!” said the corporal; and without waiting for an expression of consent he shut the door, evidently not expecting the Cossack to obey. “Of course,” thought he, “if I hadn’t been ordered to I wouldn’t send anyone, but an officer might turn up at any moment. As it is, they say eight _abreks_ have crossed over.” “Well, I suppose I must go,” remarked Ergushóv, “it’s the regulation. Can’t be helped! The times are such. I say, we must go.” Meanwhile Lukáshka, holding a big piece of pheasant to his mouth with both hands and glancing now at Nazárka, now at Ergushóv, seemed quite indifferent to what passed and only laughed at them both. Before the Cossacks were ready to go into ambush. Uncle Eróshka, who had been vainly waiting under the plane tree till night fell, entered the dark outer room. “Well, lads,” his loud bass resounded through the low-roofed room drowning all the other voices, “I’m going with you. You’ll watch for Chéchens and I for boars!” Chapter VIII It was quite dark when Uncle Eróshka and the three Cossacks, in their cloaks and shouldering their guns, left the cordon and went towards the place on the Térek where they were to lie in ambush. Nazárka did not want to go at all, but Lukáshka shouted at him and they soon started. After they had gone a few steps in silence the Cossacks turned aside from the ditch and went along a path almost hidden by reeds till they reached the river. On its bank lay a thick black log cast up by the water. The reeds around it had been recently beaten down. “Shall we lie here?” asked Nazárka. “Why not?” answered Lukáshka. “Sit down here and I’ll be back in a minute. I’ll only show Daddy where to go.”