“Get along,” cried Luke, pulling off his trousers. He quickly undressed and, crossing himself, jumped, plunging with a splash into the river. Then with long strokes of his white arms, lifting his back high out of the water and breathing deeply, he swam across the current of the Térek towards the shallows. A crowd of Cossacks stood on the bank talking loudly. Three horsemen rode off to patrol. The skiff appeared round a bend. Lukáshka stood up on the sandbank, leaned over the body, and gave it a couple of shakes.
“Quite dead!” he shouted in a shrill voice.
The Chéchen had been shot in the head. He had on a pair of blue trousers, a shirt, and a Circassian coat, and a gun and dagger were tied to his back. Above all these a large branch was tied, and it was this which at first had misled Lukáshka.
“What a carp you’ve landed!” cried one of the Cossacks who had assembled in a circle, as the body, lifted out of the skiff, was laid on the bank, pressing down the grass.
“How yellow he is!” said another.
“Where have our fellows gone to search? I expect the rest of them are on the other bank. If this one had not been a scout he would not have swum that way. Why else should he swim alone?” said a third.
“Must have been a smart one to offer himself before the others; a regular brave!” said Lukáshka mockingly, shivering as he wrung out his clothes that had got wet on the bank.
“His beard is dyed and cropped.”
“And he has tied a bag with a coat in it to his back.”
“That would make it easier for him to swim,” said some one.