was boiling by now
and Styopka was skimming off the froth.

"Is the fat ready?" Kiruha asked him in a whisper.

"Wait a little. . . . Directly."

Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that
the latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the
waggons; soon he came back with a little wooden bowl and began
pounding some lard in it.

"I went another journey with a merchant, too, . . ." Panteley went
on again, speaking as before in a low voice and with fixed unblinking
eyes. "His name, as I remember now, was Pyotr Grigoritch. He was a
nice man, . . . the merchant was. We stopped in the same way at an
inn. . . . He indoors and me with the horses. . . . The people of
the house, the innkeeper and his wife, seemed friendly good sort
of people; the labourers, too, seemed all right; but yet, lads, I
couldn't sleep. I had a queer feeling in my heart, . . . a queer
feeling, that was just it. The gates were open and there were plenty
of people about, and yet I felt afraid and not myself. Everyone had
been asleep long ago. It was the middle of the night; it would soon
be time to get up, and I was lying alone in my chaise and could not
close my eyes, as though I were some owl. And then, lads, I heard
this sound, 'Toop! toop! toop!' Someone was creeping up to the
chaise. I poke my head out, and there was a peasant woman in nothing
but her shift and with her feet bare. . . . 'What do you want, good
woman?' I asked. And she was all of a tremble; her face was
terror-stricken. . . 'Get up, good man,' said she; 'the people are
plotting evil. . . . They mean to kill your merchant. With my own
ears I heard the master whispering with his wife. . . .' So it was
not for nothing, the foreboding of my heart! 'And who are you?' I
asked. 'I am their cook,' she said. . . . Right! . . . So I got out
of the chaise and went to the merchant. I waked him up and said:
'Things aren't quite right, Pyotr Grigoritch. . . . Make haste and
rouse yourself from sleep, your worship, and dress now while there
is still time,' I said; 'and to save our skins, let us get away
from trouble.' He had no sooner begun dressing when the door opened
and, mercy on us! I saw, Holy Mother! the innkeeper and his wife
come into the room with three labourers. . . . So they had persuaded
the labourers to join them. 'The merchant has a lot of money, and
we'll go shares,' they told them. Every one of the five had a long
knife in their hand each a