He felt proud of his own knowledge, and his first thought was to say "Good-day!" in German. Then he remembered his grandfather's counsel, "Never display your knowledge until there is a good reason for it," and gave his greeting in Russian. The young man nodded his head in return; the others took no notice of him. But in passing he understood these sentences:—
"He will carry a great deal of money.... There's no danger—he will be alone.... Grain and hemp both sold to-day.... It will be already dark."
Just beyond the thicket the road made a sharp turn and entered the woods. Sasha never afterwards could quite explain the impulse which led him to dart under the trees as soon as he was out of sight, to get in the rear of the thicket, crawl silently nearer on his hands and knees, and then lie down flat within hearing of the men's voices. For a moment he was overcome with a horrible fear. They were silent, and his heart beat so loudly that he thought they could no more help noticing it than the sound of a blacksmith's hammer.
Presently one of them spoke, this time in Russian.
"There is a hill from which you can see both roads," he said, "but he'll hardly take the highway."
"Are you sure his groom was not in the town along with him?" asked another.
"It's all as I say—rely upon that!" was the answer. "For all his titles he's no more than another man, and we are three!"
In talking further they mentioned the name of the town; it was the place only a few miles distant where the grain, hemp, and other products of the estate were sold to traders—and this was the day of the sale! The plot of the robbers flashed into Sasha's mind; and if he had had any remaining doubts, they were soon removed by his hearing the name of Baron Popoff mentioned. The latter was to be waylaid, plundered, killed if he resisted. Then the eldest of the three men said, as he got up from the bank where they had been sitting:
"We must be on the way. Better be too early than too late."
"But it's a terrible thing," remarked the youngest.