"Don't let's forget our grace," said he, and bending his head and closing his eyes he said in a soft whisper: "We thank Thee, Lord, for this food; take care of us, and of those we love, for Jesus' sake. Amen."
The boys were seated together at one end of the table, while Red-scar (who had now returned) and Stepan sat facing them; and Alf, glancing up, now and again, from the food before him, could not but note the contrast between these two men, whom he now rightly regarded as his jailers. And he turned with a certain sense of relief from the brutal aspect of Gavril to the brown-eyed, clear-skinned, black-bearded Stepan.
This man had been—as Alf knew from his father—a superior workman in the fitters' department, receiving high wages and occupying a good position. And Alf wondered to see him throw in his lot with a brute like Gavril, and against such a master as Mr. Oliver had always been.
Just before the meal was ended Red-scar left the hut to get snow for water, and Alf found courage to speak to Stepan of what lay like a burden upon his heart.
"Look here, Stepan," he said, "I can speak to thee, for thou art not as the other. Tell us what has become of our parents and old Niania? Knowest thou?"
"On my honour, young sir, I know not," replied Stepan. "When Gavril and I bore Anton away unconscious to his own house, we left the master bound securely, but unhurt, lying on the sofa in the office. When we returned in half an hour's time, he was gone. As for the key of the safe, Anton found it, held it up for us to see, then suddenly fell, and from that moment the key vanished. The lady and the nurse had also disappeared before we went upstairs, though how or where I know no more than you. I only am sure that it was before the rougher among the workmen came swarming, as drunk as they could be, and turned everything upside down."
"And what had my poor father done—tell me that, Stepan," said Alf, "that you men should rise against him thus? What, for example, had he done against thee?"
"Ah, young sir, you are scarce more than a child; how can you understand? My grievance was nothing that the other men knew of or shared in. But because they mutinied, I went with them—but for reasons of my own."
"Tell us, Stepan, what was thy grievance?" asked Alf, and Bert echoed his brother's words.
"Did you ever see my young brother, Pamphil?" questioned Stepan.