“What did you call me?” asked Dymov, drawing himself up, and his eyes were suffused with blood.  “Eh!  I am a Mazeppa?  Yes?  Take that, then; go and look for it.”

Dymov snatched the spoon out of Emelyan’s hand and flung it far away.  Kiruha, Vassya, and Styopka ran to look for it, while Emelyan fixed an imploring and questioning look on Panteley.  His face suddenly became small and wrinkled; it began twitching, and the ex-singer began to cry like a child.

Yegorushka, who had long hated Dymov, felt as though the air all at once were unbearably stifling, as though the fire were scorching his face; he longed to run quickly to the waggons in the darkness, but the bully’s angry bored eyes drew the boy to him.  With a passionate desire to say something extremely offensive, he took a step towards Dymov and brought out, gasping for breath: 

“You are the worst of the lot; I can’t bear you!”

After this he ought to have run to the waggons, but he could not stir from the spot and went on: 

“In the next world you will burn in hell!  I’ll complain to Ivan Ivanitch.  Don’t you dare insult Emelyan!”

“Say this too, please,” laughed Dyrnov:  “’every little sucking-pig wants to lay down the law.’  Shall I pull your ear?”

Yegorushka felt that he could not breathe; and something which had never happened to him before—­he suddenly began shaking all over, stamping his feet and crying shrilly: 

“Beat him, beat him!”

Tears gushed from his eyes; he felt ashamed, and ran staggering back to the waggon.  The effect produced by his outburst he did not see.  Lying on the bales and twitching his arms and legs, he whispered: 

“Mother, mother!”

And these men and the shadows round the camp fire, and the dark bales and the far-away lightning, which was flashing every minute in the distance—­all struck him now as terrible and unfriendly.  He was overcome with terror and asked himself in despair why and how he had come into this unknown land in the company of terrible peasants?  Where was his uncle now, where was Father Christopher, where was Deniska?  Why were they so long in coming?  Hadn’t they forgotten him?  At the thought that he was forgotten and cast out to the mercy of fate, he felt such a cold chill of dread that he had several times an impulse to jump off the bales of wool, and run back full speed along the road; but the thought of the huge dark crosses, which would certainly meet him on the way, and the lightning flashing in the distance, stopped him. . . .  And only when he whispered, “Mother, mother!” he felt as it were a little better.

The waggoners must have been full of dread, too.  After Yegorushka had run away from the camp fire they sat at first for a long time in silence, then they began speaking in hollow undertones about something, saying that it was coming and that they must make haste and get away from it. . . .  They quickly finished supper, put out the fire and began harnessing the horses in silence.  From their fluster and the broken phrases they uttered it was apparent they foresaw some trouble.  Before they set off on their way, Dymov went up to Panteley and asked softly: