Page:Tolstoy - Tales from Tolstoi.djvu/152

Tales from Tolstoi there it lay! Then he stumbled and fell, and as he fell he stretched out his hands towards the cap.

"Well done, my son!" roared the chief of the Bashkirs, "you have indeed won much land!"

Pakhom's labourer ran towards him, and would have lifted him up, but he saw that blood was flowing from his mouth; there he lay—dead! The labourer groaned, but the chief sat squatting on the ground, holding his sides and roaring with laughter.

And now the Bashkir chief arose, took the money from the ground, and shouted to the labourer, "Come! Dig!"

Then all the Bashkirs rose likewise and went away.

The labourer remained alone with the corpse. He dug Pakhom a grave, and there he buried him. The grave was three Russian ells in length, Pakhom's exact measurement from head to foot. 102