The old man crawled from his chair, and grovelled on the floor, looking like a large heap of dirt. He seized the leg of the table with one hand, and stretched the other toward Yevsey. "Don't--you mustn't," he muttered in a loud whisper. "My dear sir, don't touch me." Klimkov pressed the trigger more tightly, more tightly. His head chilled with the effort, his hair shook. "I will go away--I'm going to get married to-morrow--I'll go away--for always--I'll never--" His heavy cowardly words rustled and crept in the air. Grease glistened on his chin, and the napkin over his bosom quivered. The revolver did not shoot. Yevsey's finger pained, and horror took powerful possession of him from head to foot, impeding his breath. "I can give you money," Solovyov whispered more quickly. "I will tell nothing--I will keep quiet--always--I understand--" Klimkov raised his hand and flung the revolver at the spy. Then he caught up his overcoat, and ran off. Two feeble shouts overtook him: "Ow, ow!" CHAPTER XXX The shrieks stuck to Yevsey, to the back of his neck, like leeches. They filled him with insane horror, and drove him on, on, and on. Behind him a crowd of people were gathering, it seemed to him, noiselessly, their feet never touching the ground. They ran after him stretching out scores of long clutching hands, which reached his neck, and touched his hair. They played with him, mocked him, disappearing and reappearing. He took cabs, rode for a while, jumped out, ran along the streets, and rode again. For the crowd was near him all the time unseen, yet so much the more horrible. He felt more at ease when he saw before him the dark patterned wall of bare boughs, which stretched to meet him. He dived into the thicket of trees, and walked in between them, strangely moving his hands behind his back, as if to draw the trees together more compactly behind him. He descended into a ravine, seated himself on the cold soil, and rose again. Then he walked the length of the ravine, breathing heavily, perspiring, drunk with fear. Soon he saw an opening between the trees. He listened carefully, noiselessly advanced a few steps further, and looked. In front of him stretched the earthwork of a railroad, beyond which rose more trees. These were small and far-between. Through the network of their branches shone the grey roof of a building. He walked back quickly up the channel of the ravine, to where the woods were thicker and darker. "They'll catch me," the cold assurance pushed him on. "They'll catch me--they must be looking for me already--they're running." A soft ringing sound strayed through the woods. It came from anear, and shook the thin branches, which swayed in the dusk of the ravine, filling the air with their rustle. Under his feet crackled thin ice, which covered the grey dried-out little pits of the bed of a stream with white skin.