It was a moonlight night, and calm, but noisy. In the forest depths life was seething. It was the season of mating; therefore the wilderness thundered with terrible bellowing of stags. These sounds, short, hoarse, full of anger and rage, were heard round about in all parts of the forest, distant and near,—sometimes right there, as if a hundred yards from the cabin.
“If men come, they will bellow too, to mislead us,” said Biloüs.
“Eh! they will not come to-night. Before the pitch-maker finds them ’twill be day,” said the other soldiers.
“In the daytime, Sergeant, it would be well to examine the cabin and dig under the walls; for if robbers dwell here there must be treasures.”
“The best treasures are in that stable,” said Soroka, pointing with his finger to the shed.
“But we’ll take them?”
“Ye are fools! there is no way out,—nothing but swamps all around.”
“But we came in.”
“God guided us. A living soul cannot come here or leave here without knowing the road.”
“We will find it in the daytime.”