Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/229

Rh Не did it so forcefully that two crows flew off in fright and rose high above the ravine.

Hershel Маk nearly fell into the water. The red and the grey soldiers separated by about fifty steps and a small, turbid, rain-beaten rivulet were eyeing each other with amazement rather than with terror. Thin scattered cries of terror and dismay were heard from the other side, and all at once it grew still with an ominous strained stillness.

"Listen . . . eh,". . . whispered Hershel Маk, touching the gun of the Kostroma reservist. But at this very moment, the soldiers as if in response to a command stepped back a pace or two, got down on their knees and an uneven crackling of guns rent the damp air.

The flaxen-haired Kostroma peasant and another soldier, a father of a large family, nick-named "uncle," threw up their arms and fell heavily upon the soaked clay.

The first was killed on the spot, but as to the "uncle," he clutched his abdomen, sat up and began to howl in a thin, piercing voice: "Bro-o-thers!"

And the soldiers were seized with a savage anger, immense and terrible, similar to the