nstantin and the waggoners were
sitting by it, dark motionless figures, and it seemed as though
there were many more of them than before. The twin crosses were
equally visible, and far, far away, somewhere by the highroad there
gleamed a red light--other people cooking their porridge, most
likely.

"Our Mother Russia is the he-ad of all the world!" Kiruha sang out
suddenly in a harsh voice, choked and subsided. The steppe echo
caught up his voice, carried it on, and it seemed as though stupidity
itself were rolling on heavy wheels over the steppe.

"It's time to go," said Panteley. "Get up, lads."

While they were putting the horses in, Konstantin walked by the
waggons and talked rapturously of his wife.

"Good-bye, mates!" he cried when the waggons started. "Thank you
for your hospitality. I shall go on again towards that light. It's
more than I can stand."

And he quickly vanished in the mist, and for a long time they could
hear him striding in the direction of the light to tell those other
strangers of his happiness.

When Yegorushka woke up next day it was early morning; the sun had
not yet risen. The waggons were at a standstill. A man in a white
cap and a suit of cheap grey material, mounted on a little Cossack
stallion, was talking to Dymov and Kiruha beside the foremost waggon.
A mile and a half ahead there were long low white barns and little
houses with tiled roofs; there were neither yards nor trees to be
seen beside the little houses.

"What village is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.

"That's the Armenian Settlement, youngster," answered Panteley.
"The Armenians live there. They are a good sort of people, . . .
the Arnienians are."

The man in grey had finished talking to Dymov and Kiruha; he pulled
up his little stallion and looked across towards the settlement.

"What a business, only think!" sighed Panteley, looking towards the
settlement, too, and shuddering at the morning freshness. "He has
sent a man to the settlement for some papers, and he doesn't come
. . . . He should have sent Styopka."

"Who is that, Grandfather?" asked Yegorushka.

"Varlamov."

My goodness! Yegorushka jumped up quickly, getting upon his knees,
and looked at the white cap. It was hard to recognize the mysterious
elusive Varlamov, who was sought by everyone, who was always "on
his rounds," and who had far more money than Countess Dranitsky,
in the short, grey little man in big boots, who was sitting on an