Peter paused again in his eating and looking out from their woodland hiding-place toward the scraggly village, asked doubtingly, "You are sure they will not fail us? For I swear, Ivan, I'll walk no further than Vilna."
Ivan twisted his scarred lips into a semblance of a smile. "The brotherhood never fail," he said. "And now that we have finished our supper, we may rest for the night, eh, Lev?" The speaker, who showed evidences of association with the upper classes, turned to the young Jewish lad sprawled beside him on the mouldy ground. The boy was laboriously spelling out words in a greasy, dog-eared tract which he tried to conceal when he saw Ivan's eyes upon him.
"Hello," exclaimed the nihilist fanatic, "what have we here?" He took the grimy pamphlet from the likewise grimy hands of the youth. "Ho-ho," he laughed boisterously, for once forgetting that sometimes even trees have ears. "Ho-ho! a merry jest, indeed! Lev reading up on transmigration! Did you think to become learned, you pitiable young dog? Have you not had meted out to you the full amount of education allowed you miserable Jews? What can you understand of such things as these? Ho-ho! yes, a joke indeed!"
The boy gulped. His narrow nostrils widened, and the corners of his sensitive mouth twitched. "I know I don't know much, Ivan. I found it on the way and kept it, for it helps sometimes, wh-when I wish I hadn't come."
"Ho-ho," laughed Ivan again. "When he wishes he hadn't come! As if he could have helped coming! Where, indeed, could the brotherhood have found a more innocent-looking hiding-place for their papers? But there, Lev, you shall have your thesis, since you feel the need of amusement, you precious infant. And, Peter, perhaps you will rest more peacefully when I tell you that Loris Pleschivna, that government spy-cat—" here Ivan paused to observe the interest which he knew that this name would create, while Lev, frightened, glanced backward—"was shot two weeks ago," finished the narrator, impressively.
Peter's yellow face showed great relief, but the boy whitened. "Well, Lev, are you not glad! Or perhaps, mighty philosopher, you think that his soul will come and steal the papers while you keep watch to-night, eh?" And Ivan grinned—a hideous, tooth-displaying grin. But Lev only shivered and looked around at the darkness.
The night, one of those dear nights whose very paleness intensifies the shadows and pictures the ghosts of the past to the guilty mind, had fallen. The two older men rolled themselves in blankets and went to sleep without delay.
The young Jew sat alone, waiting for morning. For hours he remained in the same position, his hands over his eyes that he might not see; but his ears were alert to the slightest suggestion of sound. In those weary minutes he lived over the scanty pleasures and the great tribulations of his life, the joyless life of the persecuted Polish Jew. The crackling of a dry leaf nearby aroused him. He looked up quickly, apprehensively. A long wailing howl came from somewhere in the darkness. Lev stiffened, staring into the shadows before him. From a clump of bushes directly opposite peered two weird green eyes. The lad's lower lip sagged loosely. As the strange eyes approached he unconsciously moaned. Ivan and Peter stirred. Suddenly Ivan jumped up. "Lev, Lev, what is it?" But the boy sat rigid. Ivan also looked at the green eyes in the underbrush. Then he laughed, laughed long and heartily. "Did you think it was a soul, Lev? A dog, and you afraid! Perhaps it is a soulful dog." Ivan had sufficient culture not to laugh at his own joke, but he waited for Peter's appreciation and Peter gave it. Lev's only reply was to draw his hand across his brow. The palm came down damp and clammy. "But it is just as well," went on Ivan, "that we are awake, for it will soon be daylight, and we had best be moving."
In five minutes the trio were on their watchful way to skirt the little village of Mansk. The trio, did I say? No, the quartet, I meant, for two men, one with misshapen lips, the other with decided Jewish features, went ahead; and close behind them walked a leathery visaged man, who had for a companion a scraggly half-starved cur, with ghastly green eyes. Occasionally the Jew turned, and, looking into those green eyes, shivered. "Well," said Ivan, "perhaps it is the soul of Pleschivna, eh?" In answer the dog whimpered. "It may be," said the Jew, stupidly, "it may be," and he shivered again.
The cold was of the damp clinging sort, against which no amount of clothing can protect one. The three men on the tree-covered hill overlooking the thatched brown cottages of Mansk, drew up their coat collars and shivered. They had turned back and were seeking for something. The scrawny green-eyed dog with them whined a low whine like a human moan.