Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/42

26 Going through Siberia in 1920, I happened to stay a night in a village. I was fatigued with long riding and covered with dust from head to foot, and I accepted eagerly my host's proposal to have a vapour bath.

"I say," said the host to his wife, "don't let our guest go to the bath by himself. Send the boy for Maxim, that he may accompany him."

"But I shall be able to manage without assistance," I protested vigorously.

"No, sir, it can't be. Something evil may happen to you if you go without our wizard," gravely said mine host.

"But why?" I asked in stupefaction.

"Well, you see, sir, the devils have chosen our vapour bath as their dwelling-place and frighten people," explained the peasant in his slow way. "The other day they threw an old woman off the bench—she fell into the boiler and was scalded to death."

I was not allowed to go all alone, but had to wait till Maxim came, a giant with a veritable mane of tousled grey hair and the white beard of a patriarch.

When we approached the tiny bath-shed standing at the other end of the kitchen garden, Maxim halted and exclaimed:

"Fiend, satan, black devil, small or large, angry or merry, it's I, it's I!"

We entered.

The bath was hot, sultry, close with the exhalation