“Pick up the gun, you sour-faced gray-coat, or I’ll pick it up,” said Tsiganok sternly to the other soldier. “You don’t know your business!”
The little lanterns began to move about busily again. Now it was the turn of Werner and Yanson.
“Good-by, master!” called Tsiganok loudly. “We’ll meet each other in the other world, you’ll see! Don’t turn away from me. When you see me, bring me some water to drink—it will be hot there for me!”
“Good-by!”
“I don’t want to be hanged!” said Yanson drowsily.
Werner took him by the hand, and then the Esthonian walked a few steps alone. But later they saw him stop and fall down in the snow. Soldiers bent over him, lifted him up and carried him on, and he struggled faintly in their arms. Why did he not cry? He must have forgotten even that he had a voice.
And again the little yellow lanterns became motionless.
“And I, Musechka,” said Tanya Kovalchuk mournfully, “must I go alone? We lived together, and now—”
“Tanechka, dearest—”
But Tsiganok took her part heatedly. Holding her by the hand, as though fearing that some one would take her away from him, he said quickly, in a business-like manner, to Tanya: