Werner took him by the hand, and then the Esthonian walked a few steps alone. But later they saw him stop and fall down in the snow. Soldiers bent over him, lifted him up and carried him on, and he struggled faintly in their arms. Why did he not cry? He must have forgotten even that he had a voice. And again the little yellow lanterns became motionless. “And I, Musechka,” said Tanya Kovalchuk mournfully, “must I go alone? We lived together, and now—” “Tanechka, dearest—” But Tsiganok took her part heatedly. Holding her by the hand, as though fearing that some one would take her away from him, he said quickly, in a business-like manner, to Tanya: “Ah, young lady, you can go alone! You are a pure soul—you can go alone wherever you please! But I—I can’t! A murderer!... Understand? I can’t go alone! Where are you going, you murderer? they will ask me. Why, I even stole horses, by God! But with her it is just as if—just as if I were with an infant, understand? Do you understand me?” “I do. Go. Come, let me kiss you once more, Musechka.” “Kiss! Kiss each other!” urged Tsiganok. “That’s a woman’s job! You must bid each other a hearty good-by!” Musya and Tsiganok moved forward. Musya walked cautiously, slipping, and by force of habit raising her skirts slightly. And the man led her to death firmly, holding her arm carefully and feeling the ground with his foot. The lights stopped moving. It was quiet and lonely around Tanya Kovalchuk. The soldiers were silent, all gray in the soft, colorless light of daybreak. “I am alone,” sighed Tanya Kovalchuk suddenly. “Seryozha is dead, Werner is dead—and Vasya, too. I am alone! Soldiers! soldiers! I am alone, alone—” The sun was rising over the sea. The bodies were placed in a box. Then they were taken away. With stretched necks, with bulging eyes, with blue, swollen tongues, looking like some unknown, terrible flowers between the lips, which were covered with bloody foam—the bodies were hurried back along the same road by which they had come—alive. And the spring snow was just as soft and fresh; the spring air was just as strong and fragrant. And on the snow lay Sergey’s black rubber-shoe, wet, trampled under foot. Thus did men greet the rising sun. THE END End of Project Gutenberg’s The Seven who were Hanged, by Leonid Andreyev