The Seven Who Were Hanged Part 13

"All."

"Oho!" Tsiganok grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly felt everybody with his eyes, stopping for an instant longer on Musya and Yanson. Then he winked again to Werner.

"The Minister?"

"Yes, the Minister. And you?"

"I am here for something else, master. People like me don't deal with ministers. I am a murderer, master, that's what I am. An ordinary murderer. Never mind, master, move away a little, I haven't come into your company of my own will. There will be room enough for all of us in the other world."

He surveyed them all with one swift, suspicious, wild glance from under his disheveled hair. But all looked at him silently and seriously, even with apparent interest. He grinned, showing his teeth, and quickly clapped Werner on the knee several times.

"That's the way, master! How does the song run? 'Don't rustle, O green little mother forest....'"

"Why do you call me 'master,' since we are all going--"

"Correct," Tsiganok agreed with satisfaction. "What kind of master are you, if you are going to hang right beside me? There is a master for you"; and he pointed with his finger at the silent gendarme. "Eh, that fellow there is not worse than our kind"; he pointed with his eyes at Vasily. "Master! He there, master! You're afraid, aren't you?"

"No," answered the heavy tongue.

"Never mind that 'No.' Don't be ashamed; there's nothing to be ashamed of. Only a dog wags his tail and snarls when he is taken to be hanged, but you are a man. Who is that dope? He isn't one of you, is he?"

He darted his glance rapidly about, and hissing, kept spitting continuously. Yanson, curled up into a motionless bundle, pressed closely into the corner. The flaps of his outworn fur cap stirred, but he maintained silence. Werner answered for him:

"He killed his employer."

"O Lord!" wondered Tsiganok. "Why are such people allowed to kill?"

For some time Tsiganok had been looking sideways at Musya; now turning quickly, he stared at her sharply, straight into her face.

"Young lady, young lady! What about you? Her cheeks are rosy and she is laughing. Look, she is really laughing," he said, clasping Werner's knee with his clutching, iron-like fingers. "Look, look!"

Reddening, smiling confusedly, Musya also gazed straight into his sharp and wildly searching eyes.

The wheels rattled fast and noisily. The small cars kept hopping along the narrow rails. Now at a curve or at a crossing the small engine whistled shrilly and carefully--the engineer was afraid lest he might run over somebody. It was strange to think that so much humane painstaking care and exertion was being introduced into the business of hanging people; that the most insane deed on earth was being committed with such an air of simplicity and reasonableness. The cars were running, and human beings sat in them as people always do, and they rode as people usually ride; and then there would be a halt, as usual.

"The train will stop for five minutes."

And there death would be waiting--eternity--the great mystery, on with friendliness, watching how Yanson's fingers took the cigarette, how the match flared, and then how the blue smoke issued from Yanson's mouth.

"Thanks," said Yanson; "it's good."

"How strange!" said Sergey.

"What is strange?" Werner turned around. "What is strange?"

"I mean--the cigarette."

Yanson held a cigarette, an ordinary cigarette, in his ordinary live hands, and, pale-faced, looked at it with surprise, even with terror.

And all fixed their eyes upon the little tube, from the end of which smoke was issuing, like a bluish ribbon, wafted aside by the breathing, with the ashes, gathering, turning black. The light went out.

"The light's out," said Tanya.

"Yes, the light's out."

"Let it go," said Werner, frowning, looking uneasily at Yanson, whose hand, holding the cigarette, was hanging loosely, as if dead. Suddenly Tsiganok turned quickly, bent over to Werner, close to him, face to face, and rolling the whites of his eyes, like a horse, whispered:

"Master, how about the convoys? Suppose we--we? Shall we try?"

"No, don't do it," Werner replied, also in a whisper. "We shall drink it to the bitter end."

"Why not? It's livelier in a fight! Eh? I strike him, he strikes me, and you don't even know how the thing is done. It's just as if you don't die at all."

"No, you shouldn't do it," said Werner, and turned to Yanson. "Why don't you smoke, friend?"

Suddenly Yanson's wizened face became wofully wrinkled, as if somebody had pulled strings which set all the wrinkles in motion. And, as in a dream, he began to whimper, without tears, in a dry, strained voice:

"I don't want to smoke. Aha! aha! aha! Why should I be hanged? Aha! aha!

aha!"

They began to bustle about him. Tanya Kovalchuk, weeping freely, petted him on the arm, and adjusted the drooping earlaps of his worn fur cap.

"My dear, do not cry! My own! my dear! Poor, unfortunate little fellow!"

Musya looked aside. Tsiganok caught her glance and grinned, showing his teeth.

"What a queer fellow! He drinks tea, and yet feels cold," he said, with an abrupt laugh. But suddenly his own face became bluish-black, like cast-iron, and his large yellow teeth flashed.

Suddenly the little cars trembled and slackened their speed. All, except Yanson and Kas.h.i.+rin, rose and sat down again quickly.

"Here is the station," said Sergey.

It seemed to them as if all the air had been suddenly pumped out of the car, it became so difficult to breathe. The heart grew larger, making the chest almost burst, beating in the throat, tossing about madly--shouting in horror with its blood-filled voice. And the eyes looked upon the quivering floor, and the ears heard how the wheels were turning ever more slowly--the wheels slipped and turned again, and then suddenly--they stopped.

The train had halted.

Then a dream set in. It was not terrible, rather fantastic, unfamiliar to the memory, strange. The dreamer himself seemed to remain aside, only his bodiless apparition moved about, spoke soundlessly, walked noiselessly, suffered without suffering. As in a dream, they walked out of the car, formed into parties of two, inhaled the peculiarly fresh spring air of the forest. As in a dream, Yanson resisted bluntly, powerlessly, and was dragged out of the car silently.

They descended the steps of the station.

"Are we to walk?" asked some one almost cheerily.

"It isn't far now," answered another, also cheerily.

Then they walked in a large, black, silent crowd amid the forest, along a rough, wet and soft spring road. From the forest, from the snow, a fresh, strong breath of air was wafted. The feet slipped, sometimes sinking into the snow, and involuntarily the hands of the comrades clung to each other. And the convoys, breathing with difficulty, walked over the untouched snow on each side of the road. Some one said in an angry voice:

"Why didn't they clear the road? Did they want us to turn somersaults in the snow?"

Some one else apologized guiltily.