“What the devil! Who opened them?”
The peasants went to the sluices. The roar soon died away; they pushed both bolts and the mill stopped. The light of the lantern slowly crawled back along the dam and again disappeared. Then a rattle sounded shrilly. One peasant was evidently still on guard....
The unusual commotion at the mill, sounding across the fields, again roused the sleeping villages. It was surprising how many of them were hidden in the darkness. From all sides, in front, behind, almost beneath, they answered the alarm with the beating of boards and rattles. The slow peal of a bell floated up from a distant village or a cemetery. Near by some night bird called.
“Let’s go,” said Andrey Ivanovich, when the mill had become quiet.... “One rascal can so disturb people.”
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Ask him,” said the bootmaker spitefully, and he pointed to Ivan Ivanovich.
“Y-yes,” answered the wanderer sadly. “Of course, it’s outrageous.... I don’t approve of it....”
“What’s the matter? Where’s Avtonomov?”
“There he is—calling like a bird and making signs to us.... Come here, my dear companions.... How the rascal managed to open the sluices, I didn’t happen to notice. You, too!... You’ll follow him and sleep. If you’d kept on ... and the peasants had appeared before,—there’d have been a picnic. You bet! I’ll catch that devil and don’t you interfere. I’ll turn him inside out and run his feet out through his throat!...”