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Rh day. Every little leaf on every little tree was visible. It was quite quiet on the lit-up mountain-sides as if everything had died out of existence. The only thing to be heard was the gurgling of the stream below.

He reached the forest without anything happening. Zhilin chose the darkest spot he could find in the forest, and there he sat down to rest.

After recovering his breath, he ate a hearth-cake. Then he took a stone, and again set about battering the kolodka. He battered it with all the strength of his arm, and he could not break it. He arose and went along the road. He went for a mile, got thoroughly exhausted—his legs tottered beneath him. Ten steps more he took, and then he stopped short.

"It's no use," said he; "all I can do is to drag myself on as long as I have the strength to do so. If once I sit down I shall not get up again. I can never get to the fortress to-day, but as soon as it is dawn I will lie up in the forest and at night I'll go on again."

All night he went along. The only people he encountered were two mounted Tatars, and as he saw them at a distance, he was able to hide away from them behind a tree.

The moon had already begun to wane, the dew was falling, it was close upon dawn, and still Zhilin had not got to the end of the forest. "Well," thought he, "just thirty steps more, and then I'll turn into the forest and sit down." He took the thirty steps, and saw that the forest was coming to an end. He went out to the very end of it. There, quite bright