"Surely not?"
As for the young fellow in the red shirt, he passed me by with a braggart, resentful shout of:
"Well? He had no right to insult me. Why should he have said that I was a nuisance to the whole country?"
And someone else shouted:
"Where is the ex-soldier? Who is the watchman here?"
"Bring a light," was the cry of a third.
Yet all these voices were more sober, more subdued, more restrained than they had been, and presently a little muzhik whose poll was swathed in a red handkerchief stooped and raised Silantiev's head. But almost as instantly he let it fall again, and, dipping his hands into the water, said gravely:
"You have killed him. He is dead."
At the moment I did not believe the words; but presently, as I stood watching how the water coursed between Silantiev's legs, and turned them this way and that, and made them stir as though they were striving to divest themselves of the shabby old boots, I realised with all my being that the hands which were resting in mine were the hands of a corpse. And, true enough, when I released them they slapped down upon the surface like wet dish-cloths.
Until now, about a dozen men had been standing on the bank to observe what was toward, but as soon as the little muzhik's words rang out these men recoiled, and, with jostlings, began to vent, in subdued, uneasy tones, cries of: