The two travellers were extremely tired; so after having eaten a bit of dry bread and drank out of the hollow of their hands some water from the brook in the forest, they stretched themselves on the ground near their fire, which sent up a clear red flame. Iermola roasted a few potatoes which he had brought with him; and this was their evening meal.
Radionek appeared happy all the time, but now he scarcely talked at all. His breath seemed to fail him sometimes; for having been a long time accustomed to an indoor life, he could with difficulty endure such a rapid march.
A wandering blackbird, roused by the crackling of the flames, wished them good-evening; a light breeze, passing over the summits of the pines, awoke vague murmurs in the depths of the forest. Then all was hushed; and a solemn silence began to reign again over the immense and gloomy forest.
The third day they came to woods less thick, where the trees grew smaller; low, tangled brush-wood took the place of the old trees of pine and oak; the earth was damper, softer, and more thickly covered with verdure.
They comprehended that they were coming to the low and often inundated regions; they would have to go along the edge of some vast marshes, for here and there they perceived at a distance large tracts covered with mud, interspersed with salt-water ponds.
It became impossible to follow the direction they had at first chosen; but as they had still some bread, and as their strength seemed not yet in danger of giving out, Iermola determined to turn a little to the left so as to avoid encountering the marshes. Radionek, quite restored, proposed to seek a frequented road, follow it, stop in the nearest village, and afterward go on fearlessly into the interior of the country; but Iermola did not yet dare thus to tempt fortune. Choosing, therefore, the more elevated land, across the clearings of brakes and brush-wood, they walked on in the solitude three more days, when at the end of the last day the old man, as they stopped for rest, remarked such a change in the child's face that he was seriously alarmed, and resolved to run the risk and look for the public road himself.
In fact, poor Radionek could hardly walk any longer; his courage alone kept him on his feet and supplied his strength. Unaccustomed to fatigue and labour, exposed thus to constant exertion just after a long illness, he was every moment in danger of fainting away and never rising again.
He was pale and oppressed, and complained of a great heaviness in his head. Soon he fell into a deep, heavy sleep, from which Iermola could scarcely rouse him.
It was then necessary to seek for help, to find men, a shelter, a village; and in the mean time, as our travellers had just come across a wood-cutter's hut on the road, Iermola pretended to be weary, and proposed to stop, although the day was not nearly ended.
The portion of the forest where they then were was much less wild than that which they had crossed some days before, when they plunged through the brakes.