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 ground, thumped it, dug a little here and there and always kept glancing ahead, at the stream from where his own help was to come. With snail-like pace the detachment of Mongols crawled behind him. Burunda grew impatient.

“Don’t be angry, great Behadir!” said Maxim. “Yesterday’s conflagration completely destroyed all traces of life within the valley. It’s difficult for me to place everything at once. In a minute now, we’ll be in my father’s yard.

With eager, expectant eyes, Maxim glanced towards the stream. God be praised! The banks were full. In a moment the water would begin to flood the valley. Beyond the village, near the corridor, there appeared wide rivulets and little lakes, blood red in color, reflecting the rays of the rising sun. Now it meant he could proceed with confidence. Maxim dissembled no longer but quickly led the Mongolians unto his father’s property, selected a spot where the earth reverberated hollowly and Burunda, quivering with impatience shouted an order for the Mongols to dig. Not until then did he glance about him and observe the overflowing stream.

“What is that?” he cried, gripped by some inexplicable fear.

Tuhar Wolf also shuddered. Only Maxim stood unperturbed.

“It’s nothing, Behadir. Last night there was a heavy rainstorm up in the mountains and after each such storm our stream overflows a little. But that’s nothing, the water never reaches as far as here.”

“If that’s so,” said Burunda, checking his fears, “then dig on!”

But Maxim was not telling the truth. The water flooded the valley ever wider and wider and only the ignorant and frightened Mongols did not suspect that this was not an ordinary overflow from the rains, for the waters in the stream