Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/116

Tales from Tolstoi partly obliterated by the wind. Vasily Andreich stopped, bent down, and looked at it fixedly; it was indeed the faintly outlined track of a horse, and could be nothing but the track of his own horse. He had obviously gone in a circle, and that, too, within no very great space. "So it is all up with me," thought he; but in order not to give way to his terror, he began to urge the horse on more violently than ever, gazing the while into the white, snowy mist, in which nothing was to be seen except now and then sundry little points of light suddenly appearing and as quickly vanishing again. Sometimes it seemed to him as if he heard the barking of a dog or a wolf's howl, but these sounds were so faint and undefined that he did not know whether he heard the sound or whether he only imagined he heard it; and stopping short, he began to listen very intently.

Suddenly a terrible, all-engulfing shriek resounded about his very ears, and everything beneath him shivered and trembled. Vasily Andreich seized his horse by the neck, but the very neck of the horse was also shuddering; and the frightful shriek grew still more terrible. For some seconds Vasily Andreich could not rally his wits or understand what had happened. Yet all that had happened was this: Brownie, either to put heart into himself, or to call to someone to help, had screeched his loudest with his shrill, piercing voice.

"Whew! what a fright I was in!" said Vasily Andreich to himself.

But although he now understood the true cause of his terror, he could not drive it away. 66