The man never changed his pose, but remained silent.
"Hie, you there! We won't touch you ... Only give us some bread—got any, eh? Give us some, my brother, for Christ's sake—be anathema accursed one!"
The last words of the soldier, naturally, were muttered between his teeth.
The man was silent.
"Do you hear?" cried the soldier again, with a spasm of rage and despair. "Give us bread, we pray you! We won't go near to you—throw it to us!"
"All right!" said the man curtly.
He might have said "my dear brethren!" and if he had poured into these three Christian words the holiest and purest feelings they would not have excited us, they would not have humanized us so much, as did that short and hollow: "All right!"
"Do not be afraid of us, good man!" began the soldier softly, and with a sweet smile on his face, although the man could not have seen his smile, for he was at least twenty paces distant from us.
"We are peaceful folks ... we are going from Russia into the Kuban. We have lost our money on the road, we have eaten all our provisions, and this is now the second four and twenty hours that we haven't tasted a morsel...."
"Catch!" said the good man, flinging out his arm A black morsel flashed towards us and fell on a hummock not very far from us. "The student" fell upon it.