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kets at the beast, like two lightning-rods at the bosom of a dark cloud; then both at once pulled their triggers (inexperienced lads!) and the guns thundered together: they missed. The bear leapt towards them; they seized with four hands a pike that had been stuck in the earth, and each pulled it towards him; they gazed at the bear till two rows of tusks glittered from a great red mouth, and a paw armed with claws was already descending on their brows. They turned pale, jumped back, and slipped away to where the trees were less dense. The beast reared up behind them, already he was making a slash with his claws; but he missed, ran on, reared up again aloft, and with his black paw aimed at the Count's yellow hair. He would have torn his skull from his brains as a hat from the head, but just then the Assessor and the Notary jumped out from either side, and Gerwazy came running up some hundred paces away in front, and after him Robak, though without a gun--and the three shot together at the same instant. as though at a word of command. The bear leapt into the air. like a hare before the hounds, came down upon his head, and turning a somersault with his four paws, and throwing the bloody weight of his huge body right under the Count, hurled him from his feet to the earth; he still roared, and tried to rise, when the furious Strapczyna and the ferocious Sprawnik descended on him. Then the Seneschal seized his buffalo horn, which hung by a strap, long, spotted, and crooked as a boa constrictor, and with both hands pressed it to his lips. He blew up his cheeks like a balloon, his eyes became bloodshot, he half-lowered his eyelids, drew his belly into half its size, sending thence into his lungs his entire supply of breath, and began to play. The horn, like a cyclone with a whirling breath, bore the music into the forest and an echo repeated it. The sportsmen became silent, the hunters were amazed by the power, purity, and marvellous harmony of the notes. The old man was once more exhibiting before an audience of huntsmen all that art for which he had once been famous in the forests; straightway he filled and made alive the woods and groves as though he had led into them a whole kennel and had begun the hunt. For in the playing there was a short history of the hunt. First there was a ringing, brisk summons--that was the morning call; then yelp upon yelp whined forth--that was the baying of the dogs; and here and there was a hars
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