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