Ivan took off his boots and threw them in the road. "Do the same, Olga," he said.
Olga obeyed, but half understanding. A few wolves were still following the sledge, but most had remained behind.
"Throw your coat also," said Ivan, "and your head kerchief!"
All these garments were afterwards found by the horrified persons who went out to look for the Barin, together with the heels of the Count's boots, and a few shreds of his clothes. Olga's boots and Ivan's were in pieces and partly eaten, and her coat and red cotton headkerchief were in shreds.
"This is where the Barin fell out," said the searchers; "the two others clung to the sledge a little longer, it appears, before being thrown out and pulled to pieces. It is horrible!"
But many of the peasants in Maximof's villages were of opinion that the Barin's fate was well deserved. He had been a tyrant and oppressor of the poor. "It is the finger of God!" they said. Why two innocent peasants should have been sacrificed at the same time was a puzzling factor in the matter. As for the sledge it was duly brought back by the three hungry horses next day.
"Dear Lord, look at them!" said the peasants at Toxova; "they have run half a hundred miles—chased by wolves throughout the night, only think of it! And the sledge empty behind them—bah! it is horrible!"
The new master at Ostrof asked no questions. He registered Ivan and Olga by the names they chose to give him. Two new serfs were a godsend not to be despised. It was as though some one had paid in an unexpected sum to his credit at the banker's!
And the reputation of the old hag at Maximof's manor-village increased wonderfully from this day. Her blessing upon crops, marriages and so forth doubled at once in value; while as for her curses, why, from this time onward until she died, if she but launched a malediction, the victim might as well go and hang himself for all the pleasure life would afford him until the wise woman was pleased to withdraw it.