floated not across, but with the current, rocking and whirling.

‘Stop, I say!’ exclaimed Ergushov, seizing his musket and raising himself behind the log near which he was lying.

‘Shut up, you devil!’ whispered Lukashka, grinding his teeth. ‘Abreks!’

‘Whom have you shot?’ asked Nazarka. ‘Who was it, Lukashka?’

Lukashka did not answer. He was reloading his gun and watching the floating wood. A little way off it stopped on a sand-bank, and from behind it something large that rocked in the water came into view.

‘What did you shoot? Why don’t you speak?’ insisted the Cossacks.

‘Abreks, I tell you!’