This caused a keen sense of danger to strike home in my heart, and to make my feet feel as though already the ice was escaping their tread. So, automatically picking themselves up, those feet started to bear my body in the direction of a spot on the sandy bank where the winter-stripped branches of a willow tree were writhing, and whither there were betaking themselves also Boev, the old soldier, Budirin, and the brothers Diatlov. Meanwhile the Morduine ran by my side, cursing vigorously as he did so, and Ossip followed us, walking backwards.
"No, no, Narodetz," he said.
"But, my good Ossip--"
"Never mind. What has to be, has to be."
"But, as likely as not, we may remain stuck here for two days!"
"Never mind even if we DO remain stuck here."
"But what of the festival?"
"It will have, for this year at least, to be kept without you."
Seating himself on the sand, the old soldier lit his pipe and growled:
"What cowards you all are! The bank was only fifteen sazheni from us, yet you ran as though possessed!"
"With you yourself as leader," put in Mokei.
The old soldier took no notice, but added:
"What were you all afraid of? Once upon a time Christ Himself, Our Little Father, died."
"And rose again," muttered the Morduine with a tinge of resentment. Which led Boev to exclaim:
"Puppy, hold your tongue! What right have you to air your opinions?"
"Besides, this is Good Friday, not Easter Day," the old soldier concluded with severe, didactical mien.
In a gap of blue between the clouds there was shining the March sun, and everywhere the ice was sparkling as though in derision of ourselves. Shading his eyes, Ossip gazed at the dissolving river, and said:
"Yes, it IS rising--but that will not last for long."
"No, but long enough to make us miss the festival," grumbled Sashok.
Upon this the smooth, beardless face of the youthful Morduine, a face dark and angular like the skin of an unpeeled potato, assumed a resentful frown, and, blinking his eyes, he muttered:
"Yes, here we may have to sit--here where there's neither food nor money! Other folk will be enjoying themselves, but we shall have to remain hugging our hungry stomachs like a pack of dogs! "
Meanwhile Ossip's eyes had remained fixed upon the river, for evidently his thoughts were far away, and it was in absentminded fashion that he replied:
"Hunger cannot be considered where necessity impels. By the way, what use are our damned icebreakers? For the protection of barges and such? Why, the ice hasn't the sense to care. It just goes sliding over a barge, and farewell is the word to THAT bit of property! "
"Damn it, but none of us have a barge for property, have we?
"You had better go and talk to a fool."
"The truth is that the icebreaker ought to have been taken in hand sooner."
Finally, the old soldier made a queer grimace, and ejaculated:
"Blockhead!"
From a barge a knot of sailors shouted something, and at the same moment the river sent forth a sort of whiff of cruel chilliness and brooding calm. The disposition of the pine boughs now had changed. Nay, everything in sight was beginning to assume a different air, as though everything were charged with tense expectancy.
One of the younger men asked diffidently, beneath his breath:
"Mate Ossip, what are we going to do?"
"What do you say?" Ossip queried absent-mindedly.
"I say, what are we going to do? Just to sit here?"
To this Boev responded, with loud, nasal derision in his tone:
"Yes, my lad, for the Lord has seen fit to prevent you from participating in His most holy festival."
And the old soldier, in support of his mate, extended his pipe towards the river, and muttered with a grin:
"You want to cross to the town, do you? Well, be off with you, and though the ice may give way beneath your feet and drown you, at least you'll be taken to the police station, and so get to your festival. For that's what you want, I suppose?"
"True enough," Mokei re-echoed.
Then the sun went in, and the river grew darker, while the town stood out more clearly. Ceaselessly, the younger men gazed towards the town with wistful, gloomy eyes, though silently they remained where they were.
Similarly, I myself was beginning to find things irksome and uncomfortable, as always happens when a number of companions are thinking different thoughts, and contain in themselves none of that unity of will which alone can join men into a direct, uniform force. Rather, I felt as though I could gladly leave my companions and start out upon the ice alone.
Suddenly Ossip recovered his faculties. Rising, then doffing his cap and making the sign of the cross in the direction of the town, he said with a quiet, simple, yet somehow authoritative, air:
"Very well, my mates. Go in peace, and may the Lord go with you!"
"But whither?" asked Sashok, leaping to his feet. "To the town? "
"Whither else?"
The old soldier was the only one not to rise, and with conviction he remarked:
"It will result but in our getting drowned."
"Then stay where you are."
Ossip 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.
