“We-ll! How much longer am I to wait while you get ready to answer?” cried Syeroshtán, beginning to get angry.
“Internal enemies—enemies——”
“You don’t know it?” cried Syeroshtán in a threatening tone, and he would have fallen upon Arkhipov, but, glancing with a side glance at the officer, he contented himself with shaking his head and rolling his eyes terribly. “Well, listen. Internal enemies are those who resist the law; for example, who shall we——?” He glanced at Ovechkin’s sharp eyes. “You tell us, Ovechkin.”
Ovechkin jumped up and cried joyfully:
“Such as rebels, students, horse-stealers, Jews and Poles.”
Shapovalenko was occupied with his platoon close by. Pacing up and down between the benches, he asked questions from the “Soldier’s Manual,” which he held in his hand.
“Soltuis, what is a sentry?”
Soltuis, a Lithuanian, cried, opening and shutting his eyes rapidly in the effort to think: “A sentry must be incorruptible.”
“Well, and what else?”
“A sentry is a soldier placed at a certain post with a rifle in his hand.”