It might have been worse, for there were no broken bones, as I had feared at first; but he had a badly sprained ankle.
“Bind it—hard, with your handkerchief,” he said, between his set teeth. “We must get out of this, into the wood. They will return directly.”
His grit was splendid, for he never uttered a sound—though his foot must have hurt him badly—as I helped him up. Supporting him as well as I could, we stumbled into the wood, groping our way through the darkness, and thankful for every flash that gave us light, an instant at a time, and less dazzling—though more dangerous—here under the canopy of pine branches than yonder on the open road.
Even if Mishka had not been lamed, our progress must have been slow, for the undergrowth was thick; still, he managed to get along somehow, leaning on me, and dragging himself forward by grasping each slender pine trunk that he lurched up against.
He sank down at length, utterly exhausted, and, in the pause that followed, above the sound of our labored breathing and the ceaseless patter of the rain on the pines, I heard the jangle of the cavalry patrol returning along the road. Had “Ivan” eluded or outdistanced them? Were they taking him back with them, a prisoner; or, worst of all, had they shot him?
The sounds passed—how close we still were to the road!—and gradually died away.
“He has escaped, thanks be to God!” Mishka said, in a hoarse whisper.
“How do you know that?”
“If they had overtaken him they would have found the droshky empty, and would have sought us along the road.”