Lukáshka had not yet dressed. He was wet. His neck was redder and his eyes brighter than usual, his broad jaws twitched, and from his healthy body a hardly perceptible steam rose in the fresh morning air.
“He too was a man!” he muttered, evidently admiring the corpse.
“Yes, if you had fallen into his hands you would have had short shrift,” said one of the Cossacks.
The Angel of Silence had taken wing. The Cossacks began bustling about and talking. Two of them went to cut brushwood for a shelter, others strolled towards the cordon. Luke and Nazárka ran to get ready to go to the village.
Half an hour later they were both on their way homewards, talking incessantly and almost running through the dense woods which separated the Térek from the village.
“Mind, don’t tell her I sent you, but just go and find out if her husband is at home,” Luke was saying in his shrill voice.
“And I’ll go round to Yámka too,” said the devoted Nazárka. “We’ll have a spree, shall we?”
“When should we have one if not today?” replied Luke.
When they reached the village the two Cossacks drank, and lay down to sleep till evening.