Page:Leskov - The Sentry and other Stories.djvu/125

 Rh "I don't want to, auntie."

"No, Fedia, listen to me and lie down; it is time to lie down," Katerina Lvovna repeated.

"Why, auntie? I don't at all want to."

"No, you must lie down; lie down at once," said Katerina Lvovna, in a changed shaky voice and seizing the boy under the arms, she put his head on the pillow.

At that moment Fedia shrieked with fear; he had perceived Sergei pale and barefooted entering the room.

Katerina Lvovna placed the palm of her hand over the frightened child's open mouth and cried:

"Quickly now; hold him tight; keep him from struggling."

Sergei seized Fedia by the arms and legs, and Katerina Lvovna with one rapid movement covered the childish face of the victim with a large down pillow and threw herself on it with her firm elastic bosom.

For four minutes there was the silence of the grave in the room.

"He's dead," whispered Katerina Lvovna, and had only just risen to put everything in order again, when the walls of the quiet house, that had concealed so many crimes, were shaken by deafening blows: the windows rattled, the floors shook, the chairs of the hanging icon lamps