The boatman was sobered by the shock, and almost stupified with grief for what had happened. But the others crowded round him, and urged him to go and seek for poor Stefen’s body, that he might at least be buried like a Christian. This he consented to do; and the task of finding it proved unexpectedly easy, for a miniature island, in the midst of the river, with a single tree growing upon it, had arrested the body as it was borne downwards by the strong current of the stream. The group on the shore waited in mournful silence while the boatman and two of the mujiks went and returned, bringing with them their solemn freight, which they laid sadly and reverently on the fair greensward, beneath the happy morning sun. All crossed themselves and murmured a prayer for his soul; and the oldest of the mujiks detached a little sacred picture from his own neck and laid it on his breast. It was Ivan’s first meeting face to face with the king of terrors. The form so lately full of life and energy lay stiff and rigid; while the brow, the cheek, the lips--when he saw the strange and solemn change that had swept over all these, his young heart could bear no more, he lifted up his voice and wept. His tears unlocked the floodgates of the general sorrow; all the mujiks standing around him wept and wrung their hands, like the grown-up children that in truth they were. Just at that moment, as if to throw into strongest relief the contrast between life and death, between earth’s brightest sunshine and her deepest shadows, a young boyar from the party at the post-house came riding rapidly over the smooth greensward. Drawing near the weeping group, he checked his horse to a foot-pace, and Ivan turned and looked at him. There was no splendour in his dress--an officer’s uniform, gray in colour and plain in fashion. But his face, which seemed to bring the glow and glory of the morning with it, held Ivan’s gaze with a kind of fascination. Features almost perfect enough for the deathless marble of a Grecian sculptor might have worn no charm to his untrained eye, if they had not also beamed with a kindness and gentleness that took his heart at once. That bright, young face--the first beardless manly face he remembered to have seen--left itself for ever on his mind. It was destined to be the inspiration of his life; and when death closed his eyes, he had scarcely a dearer hope than to see it once again in the morning of the resurrection. The boyar, meanwhile, had come quite close to the group ere he appeared to perceive distinctly the cause of their distress. But no sooner had he done so than he sprang from his horse, flinging the bridle to Ivan, who proudly accepted the charge. The next moment he was bending over the lifeless form; the next, he turned and said cheerfully to the mujiks standing near,-- “My children, this is not death. We will save him yet.”