Lukashka looked around laughing at Olenin and stooped a little.

‘Look out or they will kill you, Dmitri Andreich,’ he said. ‘You’d better go away — you have no business here.’ But Olenin wanted absolutely to see the ABREKS.

From behind the mound he saw caps and muskets some two hundred paces off. Suddenly a little cloud of smoke appeared from thence, and again a bullet whistled past. The ABREKS were hiding in a marsh at the foot of the hill. Olenin was much impressed by the place in which they sat. In reality it was very much like the rest of the steppe, but because the ABREKS sat there it seemed to detach itself from all the rest and to have become distinguished. Indeed it appeared to Olenin that it was the very spot for ABREKS to occupy.