There! Were those not voices? Did Andryushka Lasaref wish to take the skins at once, and had he brought the child with him? But there seemed to be several people, and he heard distinctly the beat of the horses' hoofs.
He ought to have been glad perhaps, but his heart felt painfully contracted. What a wolf's life his was, spent in perpetual mistrust and fear! Now he could distinguish Anjuta's merry tones ... and now something came forward from between the trees.
"You come to fetch my soul," cried Ivan with his hair bristling.
The four Cossacks halted on the clearing before the hut.
"Good evening, Grandfather! Grandfather! here I am!"
But what was the matter? Her Grandfather rushed into the hut and re-appeared with his gun in his hand. And he was hardly recognizable with his threatening eyes in his distorted face.
"Come now! No jokes, Ivan the Runaway," exclaimed the kind stout gentleman. "You know you only make matters worse. Throw away your gun, or I will have you knouted."
"Your honour has taken the trouble to come here for the sake of my poor soul," said the old man with a grim smile. His eye fell on Anjuta.
"You have betrayed me, you vermin!" he snarled.
The convict had awoken in him.