Two or three words of approval were audible in the crowd.
"You ought to have something to warm you now. Come along and we will have a drink," said someone.
But at this point all at once somebody pushed forward abruptly: it was Vassily.
"What are you doing, good Christians?" he cried, tearfully. "We must bring him to by rolling him; it's our young gentleman!"
"Roll him, roll him," shouted the crowd, which was continually growing.
"Hang him up by the feet! it's the best way!"
"Lay him with his stomach on the barrel and roll him backwards and forwards.... Take him, lads."
"Don't dare to touch him," put in the soldier with the pike. "He must be taken to the police station."
"Low brute," Trofimitch's bass voice rang out.
"But he is alive," I shouted at the top of my voice and almost with horror. I had put my face near to his. "So that is what the drowned look like," I thought, with a sinking heart.... And all at once I saw David's lips stir and a little water oozed from them....