“What are you standing there for? Haul him along, lads!” shouted Lukáshka in a commanding voice to the Cossacks, who reluctantly took hold of the body, obeying him as though he were their chief. After dragging the body along for a few steps the Cossacks let fall the legs, which dropped with a lifeless jerk, and stepping apart they then stood silent for a few moments. Nazárka came up and straightened the head, which was turned to one side so that the round wound above the temple and the whole of the dead man’s face were visible. “See what a mark he has made right in the brain,” he said. “He won’t get lost. His owners will always know him!” No one answered, and again the Angel of Silence flew over the Cossacks. The sun had risen high and its diverging beams were lighting up the dewy grass. Near by, the Térek murmured in the awakened wood and, greeting the morning, the pheasants called to one another. The Cossacks stood still and silent around the dead man, gazing at him. The brown body, with nothing on but the wet blue trousers held by a girdle over the sunken stomach, was well shaped and handsome. The muscular arms lay stretched straight out by his sides; the blue, freshly shaven, round head with the clotted wound on one side of it was thrown back. The smooth tanned forehead contrasted sharply with the shaven part of the head. The open glassy eyes with lowered pupils stared upwards, seeming to gaze past everything. Under the red trimmed moustache the fine lips, drawn at the corners, seemed stiffened into a smile of good-natured subtle raillery. The fingers of the small hands covered with red hairs were bent inward, and the nails were dyed red. Lukáshka had not yet dressed. He was wet. His neck was redder and his eyes brighter than usual, his broad jaws twitched, and from his healthy body a hardly perceptible steam rose in the fresh morning air. “He too was a man!” he muttered, evidently admiring the corpse. “Yes, if you had fallen into his hands you would have had short shrift,” said one of the Cossacks. The Angel of Silence had taken wing. The Cossacks began bustling about and talking. Two of them went to cut brushwood for a shelter, others strolled towards the cordon. Luke and Nazárka ran to get ready to go to the village. Half an hour later they were both on their way homewards, talking incessantly and almost running through the dense woods which separated the Térek from the village. “Mind, don’t tell her I sent you, but just go and find out if her husband is at home,” Luke was saying in his shrill voice. “And I’ll go round to Yámka too,” said the devoted Nazárka. “We’ll have a spree, shall we?” “When should we have one if not today?” replied Luke. When they reached the village the two Cossacks drank, and lay down to sleep till evening. Chapter X