Page:Edgar Wallace--The book of all-power.djvu/101

 For the rest his horizon was filled with a jumble of buildings, magnificent or squalid; the half-revealed roofs on the wooded slopes of the four hills, and the ragged fringe of belfry and glittering cupola which made up the picture of Kieff.

The month was June and the year of grace 1914, and Malcolm Hay, chief engineer of the Ukraine-American Oil Corporation, had no other thought in his mind, as he looked upon the undoubted beauty of Kieff, than that it would be a very pleasant place to leave. He climbed the broken stone wall and stood, his hands thrust deeply into his breeches pockets, watching the scene. It was one of those innumerable holy days which the Russian peasant celebrated with such zest. Rather it was the second of three consecutive feast days and, as Malcolm knew, there was small chance of any work being done on the field until his labourers had taken their fill of holiness, and had slept off the colossal drunk which inevitably followed this pious exercise.

A young peasant, wearing a sheepskin coat despite the stifling heat of the day, walked quickly up the hill leading a laden donkey. The man stopped when he was abreast of Malcolm, took a cigarette from the inside of his coat and lit it.

"God save you, dudushka," he said cheerfully.

Malcolm was so used to being addressed as