"You can't turn back now!" said the other angrily.
Sasha waited until he could no longer hear their footsteps. Then he started up, and, keeping away from the road they had taken, ran through the woods and thickets in the direction of the town. His only thought was, to reach the hill the robbers had mentioned, from which both roads could be seen. He knew it well; there was a bridle-path, shorter than the main highway, and the baron would probably take it, as he was on horseback. The hill divided the two roads; it was covered with young birch-trees, which grew very thickly on the summit and almost choked up the path. But there was a long spur of thicket, he remembered, running out on the ridge, and whoever stood at the end of it could almost look into the town.
Sasha was so excited that he took a track almost as short as a bird flies. He tore through bushes and brambles without thinking of the scratches they gave him; he leaped across gullies, and ran at full speed over open fields; he was faint, and bruised, and breathless, but he never paused until the farthest point of the thicket on the hill was reached. It was then about an hour before sunset, and only one or two travellers on foot were to be seen upon the highway. The town was half a mile off, but he could plainly see where the bridle-track issued from a little lane between the houses. Carefully concealing himself under a thick alder-bush, he kept his eyes fixed upon that point.
He was obliged to wait for what seemed a long, long time. The sun was just setting when, finally, a horseman made his appearance, and Sasha knew by the large white horse that it must be the baron. The rider looked at his watch, and then began to canter along the level towards the hill. There was no time to lose; so, without pausing a moment to think, Sasha sprang from his hiding-place, and darted down the grassy slope at full speed, crying:
"Lord Baron! Lord Baron!"
The rider, at first, did not seem to heed. He cantered on, and it required all Sasha's remaining strength to reach the path in advance of him. Then he dropped upon his knees, lifted up his hands, and cried once more:
"Stop, Lord Baron!"
The baron reined up his horse just in time to avoid trampling on the boy. Sasha sprang to his feet, seized the bridle, and gasped, "The robbers! the robbers!"
"Who are you?—and what does this mean?" asked the baron in a stern voice.
But Sasha was too much in earnest to feel afraid of the great lord. "I am Sasha, the son of Ivan, the son of Gregor," he replied; and then related as rapidly as he could all that he had seen and heard.