Concluding that the commandant would not be angry at him for not sparing the Tartars, the terrible sergeant, impelled by pure inborn cruelty, stuffed their mouths with grass, so as to avoid noise, and slaughtered them like bullocks. He spared Eliashevich alone, supposing that he would be needed to guide them. When he had finished this work, he dragged away from the fire the bodies, still quivering, and put them in a row; he went then to look at the commandant.
“Even if he has gone mad,” muttered Lusnia, “we must get that one.”
Midday had passed, the afternoon hours as well, and the day was inclining toward evening. But those clouds, small at first, occupied now almost the whole heavens, and were growing ever thicker and darker without losing that copper-colored gleam along the edges. Their gigantic rolls turned heavily, like millstones on their own axes; then they fell on one another, crowded one another, and pushing one another from the height, rolled in a dense mass lower and lower toward the earth. The wind struck at times, like a bird of prey with its wings, bent the cornel-trees and the dogwood to the earth, tore away a cloud of leaves, and bore it apart with rage; at times it stopped as if it had fallen into the ground. During such intervals of silence there was heard in the gathering clouds a certain ominous rattling, wheezing, rumbling; you would have said that legions of thunders were gathering within them and ranging for battle, grumbling in deep voices while rousing rage and fury in themselves, before they would burst out and strike madly on the terrified earth.
“A storm, a storm is coming!” whispered the dragoons to one another.
The storm was coming. The air grew darker each instant.
Then on the east, from the side of the Dniester, thunder rose and rolled with an awful outbreak along the heavens, till it went far away, beyond the Pruth; there it was silent for a moment, but springing up afresh, rushed toward the steppes of Budjyak, and rolled along the whole horizon.
First, great drops of rain fell on the parched grass. At that moment Pan Adam stood before the dragoons.
“To horse!” cried he, with a mighty voice.
And at the expiration of as much time as is needed to say a hurried “Our Father,” he was moving at the head of a hundred and fifty horsemen. When he had ridden out of the woods, he joined, near the herd of horses, the other half of his men, who had been standing guard at the field-side, to prevent any herdsmen from escaping by stealth to the camp. The dragoons rushed around the herd in the twinkle of an eye, and giving out wild shouts, peculiar to Tartars, moved on, urging before them the panic-stricken horses.
The sergeant held Eliashevich on a lariat, and shouted in his ear, trying to outsound the roar of the thunder,—