he
remarked as he clambered back, and stood grinning with an even more
angular and attenuated appearance than usual.

The next moment Boev achieved a second plunge, and screamed, as before,
for help.

"Don't shout, you goat of a Yashka!" Ossip exclaimed as he threatened
him with the spirit-level. "Why scare people? I'll give it you! Look
here, lads. Let every man take off his belt and turn out his pockets.
Then he'll walk lighter."

Toothed jaws gaped and crunched at us at every step, and vomited thick
spittle; at every tenth step their keen blue fangs reached for our
lives. Meanwhile, the soaked condition of our boots and clothes had
rendered us as slimy as though smeared with paste. Also, it so weighed
us down as to hinder any active movement, and to cause each step to be
taken cautiously, slowly, silently, and with ponderous diffidence.

Yet, soaked though we were, Ossip might verily have known the number of
cracks in advance, so smooth and harelike was his progress from floe to
floe as at intervals he faced about, watched us, and cried sonorously:

"That's the way to do it, eh?"

Yes, he absolutely played with the river, and though it kept catching
at his diminutive form, he always evaded it, circumvented its
movements, and avoided its snares. Nay, capable even of directing its
trend did he seem, and of thrusting under our feet only the largest and
firmest floes.

"Lads, there is no need to be downhearted," he would cry at intervals.

"Ah, that brave Ossip!" the Morduine once ejaculated. "In very truth is
he a man, and no mistake! Just look at him!"

The closer we approached the further shore, the thinner and the more
brittle did the ice become, and the more liable we to break through it.
By this time the town had nearly passed us, and we were bidding fair to
be carried out into the Volga, where the ice would still be sound, and,
as likely as not, draw us under itself.

"By your leave, we are going to be drowned," the Morduine murmured as
he glanced at the blue shadow of eventide on our left.

And simultaneously, as though compassionating our lot, a large floe
grounded upon the bank, glided upwards with a cracking and a crashing,
and there held fast!

"Run, all of you!" came a furious shout from Ossip. "Hurry up, now! Put
your very best legs foremost!"

For myself, as I sprang upon the floe I lost my footing, and, falling
headlong and remaining seated on the hither end of the floe amid a
shower of s