“They’ll get better in good time, brother. Walk more lightly—like this.”
And Jilin turned back and went up the hill to the left into the wood. Kostilin kept on lagging behind and groaning. Jilin remonstrated with him and walked on ahead.
They reached the top of the hill, where they found a wood, as Jilin had surmised. They went into it. The brambles tore the last of their clothes. At last they found a path and followed it.
“Stop!” Jilin said. There was a trampling of hoofs on the path. They listened. It sounded like the trampling of horses’ hoofs, but the sound ceased. They moved on and again they heard the trampling. They stopped again, and the sound ceased. Jilin crept nearer and in a patch of light on the path he saw something standing. It seemed like a horse, yet not like a horse, and it had something queer on its back that was not a man. The creature snorted. “What a strange thing!” Jilin thought, and gave a low whistle. The animal bounded off the path into the thicket and there was a sound of cracking branches as though a storm had swept through the wood.
Kostilin fell to the ground in terror; Jilin laughed, saying, “It’s a stag. Can’t you hear how it’s breaking the branches with its antlers? We are afraid of him and he is afraid of us.”
They went on further. The Great Bear was already setting and the dawn was not far off. They did not know whether they were going in the right direction. It seemed to Jilin that the Tartars had brought him along this path when they captured him and that it was still another seven miles to the fortress, but he had nothing certain to go by, and at night one could easily mistake the way.
Kostilin dropped to the ground and said, “Do what you like, but I can’t go any further. My legs won’t carry me.”
Jilin attempted persuasion.
“It’s no good,” Kostilin said; “I can’t go on.”
Jilin grew angry and vented his disgust.