he river, just opposite the cordon,
was deserted; only an immense waste of low-growing reeds stretched far
away to the very foot of the mountains. On the low bank, a little to
one side, could be seen the flat-roofed clay houses and the
funnel-shaped chimneys of a Chechen village. The sharp eyes of the
Cossack who stood on the watch-tower followed, through the evening
smoke of the pro-Russian village, the tiny moving figures of the
Chechen women visible in the distance in their red and blue garments.

Although the Cossacks expected abreks to cross over and attack them
from the Tartar side at any moment, especially as it was May when the
woods by the Terek are so dense that it is difficult to pass through
them on foot and the river is shallow enough in places for a horseman
to ford it, and despite the fact that a couple of days before a Cossack
had arrived with a circular from the commander of the regiment
announcing that spies had reported the intention of a party of some
eight men to cross the Terek, and ordering special vigilance--no
special vigilance was being observed in the cordon. The Cossacks,
unarmed and with their horses unsaddled just as if they were at home,
spent their time some in fishing, some in drinking, and some in
hunting. Only the horse of the man on duty was saddled, and with its
feet hobbled was moving about by the brambles near the wood, and only
the sentinel had his Circassian coat on and carried a gun and sword.
The corporal, a tall thin Cossack with an exceptionally long back and
small hands and feet, was sitting on the earth-bank of a hut with his
beshmet unbuttoned. On his face was the lazy, bored expression of a
superior, and having shut his eyes he dropped his head upon the palm
first of one hand and then of the other. An elderly Cossack with a
broad greyish-black beard was lying in his shirt, girdled with a black
strap, close to the river and gazing lazily at the waves of the Terek
as they monotonously foamed and swirled. Others, also overcome by the
heat and half naked, were rinsing clothes in the Terek, plaiting a
fishing line, or humming tunes as they lay on the hot sand of the river
bank. One Cossack, with a thin face much burnt by the sun, lay near the
hut evidently dead drunk, by a wall which though it had been in shadow
some two hours previously was now exposed to the sun's fierce slanting
rays.

Lukashka, who stood on the watch-tower, was a tall handsome lad about
twenty years old