'Can it be that my hour has come?' he thought; 'No, no,' he whispered, 'not till I have found the horses, else they will take me for a thief.' He wrapped the child more closely in the coverings; she had fallen asleep in spite of shaking and discomfort; he walked about aimlessly, so as to keep moving.
'I won't be a fool and sit down,' he muttered, 'if I sit down I shall be frozen, and the thieves will keep the horses.'
The hard snow fell faster and faster, whitening Maciek from head to foot; the wind swept along the top of the hills, and as he listened to it, the man was glad that he had not been caught in the open.
'It's quite warm here,' he said, 'but all the same I'm not going to sit down, I must keep on walking till the morning.'
But it was not yet midnight and Maciek's legs began to refuse obedience, he could no longer push away the snow with his feet; he stopped and stamped, but that was even more tiring; he leant against the sides of the little cavity. The spot was excellent; it was raised above the ravine, and the little hollow was just large enough to hold a man; bushes sheltered it against the snow on all sides. But the crowning advantage was a jutting piece of rock, about the size of a stool.
'No, I won't sit down,' he determined, 'I know I should get frozen…. It's true,' he added after a while, 'it would not do to go to sleep, but it can't hurt to sit down for a bit.'
He boldly sat down, drew his cap over his ears and the clothes round the sleeping child, and decided that he would alternately rest and stamp, and so await the morning.
'So long as I don't go to sleep,' he kept on reminding himself. He fancied the air was getting a little warmer and his feet were thawing. Instead of the cold he felt ants creeping under the soles of his feet. They crept in among his toes, swarmed over his injured leg, then over the other, and reached his knees. In a mysterious way one had suddenly settled on his nose; he wanted to flick it off, but a whole swarm was sitting on his arms. He decided not to drive them away, for in the first place they were keeping him awake, and then he rather liked them. He smiled, as one reached his waist, and did not ask how they came to be there. It was not surprising that there should be ant-hills in the ravines, and he forgot that it was winter.
'So long as I don't go to sleep…so long as I don't go to sleep….' But at last he asked himself 'Why am I not to go to sleep? It's night and I am in the stable? The thieves might be coming, that's it!'
He grasped his stick more firmly; whispers seemed to be stirring all round.