glanced around the party. Then he continued:
"Bestir yourselves! Look alive!"
Upon which all crowded together, and Boev, thrusting the tools into a hole in the bank, groaned:
"The order 'go' has been given, so go we MUST, well though a man in receipt of such an order might ask himself, 'How is it going to be done?'"
Ossip seemed, in some way, to have grown younger and more active, while the habitually shy, though good-humoured, expression of his countenance was gone from his ruddy features, and his darkened eyes had assumed an air of stern activity. Nay, even his indolent, rolling gait had disappeared, and in his step there was more firmness, more assurance, than had ever before been the case.
"Let every man take a plank," he said, "and hold it in front of him. Then, should anyone fall in (which God forbid!), the plank-ends will catch upon the ice to either side of him, and hold him up. Also, every man must avoid cracks in the ice. Yes, and is there a rope handy? Here, Narodetz! Reach me that spirit-level. Is everyone ready? I will walk first, and next there must come – well, which is the heaviest? – you, soldier, and then Mokei, and then the Morduine, and then Boev, and then Mishuk, and then Sashok, and then Makarei, the lightest of all. And do you all take off your caps before starting, and say a prayer to the Mother of God. Ha! Here is Old Father Sun coming out to greet us."
Readily did the men bare their tousled grey or flaxen heads as momentarily the sun glanced through a bank of thin white vapour before again concealing himself, as though averse to arousing any false hopes.
"Now!" sharply commanded Ossip in his new-found voice. "And may God go with us! Watch my feet, and don't crowd too much upon one another, but keep each at a sazhen's distance or more – in fact, the more the better. Yes, come, mates!"
With which, stuffing his cap into his bosom, and grasping the spirit-level in his hands, Ossip set foot upon the ice with a sliding, cautious, shuffling gait. At the same moment, there came from the bank behind us a startled cry of:
"Where are you off to, you fools?"
"Never mind," said Ossip to ourselves. "Come along with you, and don't stand staring."
"You blockheads!" the voice repeated. "You had far better return."
"No, no! come on!" was Ossip's counter-command. "And as you move think of God, or you'll never find yourselves among the invited guests at His holy festival of Eastertide."
Next Ossip sounded a police whistle, which act led the old soldier to exclaim:
"Oh, that's the way, mate! Good! Yes, you know what to do. Now notice will have been given to the police on the further bank, and, if we're not drowned, we shall find ourselves clapped in gaol when we get there. However, I'm not responsible."
In spite of this remonstrance, Ossip's sturdy voice drew his companions after him as though they had been tied to a rope.
"Watch your feet carefully," once more he cried.
Our line of march was directed obliquely, and in the opposite direction to the current. Also, I, as the rearmost of the party, found it pleasant to note how the wary little Ossip of the silvery head went looping over the ice with the deftness of a hare, and practically no raising of the feet, while behind him there trailed, in wild-goose fashion, and as though tied to a single invisible string, six dark and undulating figures the shadows of which kept making themselves visible on the ice, from those figures' feet to points indefinitely remote. And as we proceeded, all of us kept our heads lowered as though we had been descending from a mountain in momentary fear of a false step.
Also, though the shouting in our rear kept growing in volume, and we could tell that by this time a crowd had gathered, not a word could we distinguish, but only a sort of ugly din.
In time our cautious march became for me a mere, mechanical, wearisome task, for on ordinary occasions it was my custom to maintain a pace of greater rapidity. Thus, eventually I sank into the semiconscious condition amid which the soul turns to vacuity, and one no longer thinks of oneself, but, on the contrary issues from one's personality, and begins to see objects with unwonted clarity, and to hear sounds with unwonted precision. Under my feet the seams in the blue-grey, leaden ice lay full of water, while as for the ice itself, it was blinding in its expansive glitter, even though in places it had come to be either cracked or bulbous, or had ground itself into powder with its own movement, or had become heaped into slushy hummocks of pumice-like sponginess and the consistency of broken glass. And everywhere around me I could discern the chilly, gaping smile of blue crevices which caught at my feet, and rendered the tread of my boot-soles unstable. And ever, as we marched, could the voices of Boev and the old soldier be heard speaking in antiphony, like two pipes being fluted by one and the same pair of lips.
"I won't be responsible," said the one voice.
"Nor I," responded the other.
"The only reason why I have come is that I was told to do so. That's all about it."
"Yes, and the same with me."
"One man gives an order, and another man, perhaps a man a thousand times more sensible than he, is forced to obey it."
"Is any man, in these days, sensible, seeing what a racket we have to live among?"
By this time Ossip had tucked the skirts of his greatcoat into his belt, while beneath those skirts his legs (clad in grey cloth gaiters of a military pattern) were shuffling along as lightly and easily as springs, and in a manner that suggested that there was turning and twisting in front of him some person whom, though desirous of barring to him the direct course, the shortest route, Ossip successfully opposed and evaded by dint of dodges and deviations to right and left, and occasional turns about, and the execution of dance steps and loops and semicircles. Meanwhile in the tones of Ossip's voice there was a soft, musical ring that struck agreeably upon the ear, and harmonised to admiration with the song of the bells just when we were approaching the middle of the river's breadth of four hundred sazheni. There resounded over the surface of the ice a vicious rustle while a piece of ice slid from under my feet. Stumbling, and powerless to retain my footing, I blundered down upon my knees in helpless astonishment; and then, as I glanced upstream, fear gripped at my throat, deprived me of speech, and darkened all my vision. For the whole substance of the grey ice-core had come to life and begun to heave itself upwards! Yes, the hitherto level surface was thrusting forth sharp angular ridges, and the air seemed full of a strange sound like the trampling of some heavy being over broken glass.
With a quiet trickle there came a swirl of water around me, while an adjacent pine bough cracked and squeaked as though it too had come to life. My companions shouted, and collected into a knot; whereupon, at once dominating and quelling the tense, painful hubbub of sounds, there rang forth the voice of Ossip.
"Mother of God!" he shouted. "Scatter, lads! Get away from one another, and keep each to himself! Now! Courage!"
With that, springing towards us as though wasps had been after him, and grasping the spirit-level as though it had been a weapon, he jabbed it to every side, as though fighting invisible foes, while, just as the quivering town began, seemingly, to glide past us, and the ice at my feet gave a screech and crumbled to fragments beneath me, so that water bubbled to my knees. I leapt up from where I was, and rushed blindly in Ossip's direction.
"Where are you coming to, fool?" was his shout as he brandished the spirit-level. "Stand still where you are!"
Indeed, Ossip seemed no longer to be Ossip at all, but a person curiously younger, a person in whom all that had been familiar in Ossip had become effaced. Yes, the once blue eyes had turned to grey, and the figure added half an arshin to its stature as, standing as erect as a newly made nail, and pressing both feet together, the foreman stretched himself to his full height, and shouted with his mouth open to its widest extent:
"Don't shuffle about, nor crowd upon one another, or I'll break your heads!"
Whereafter, of myself in particular, he inquired as he raised the spirit-level:
"What is the matter with YOU, pray?"
"I am feeling frightened," I muttered in response.
"Feeling