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And the sentinel, in the meantime white as chalk, weeping with pain and fright, would knock at the door with the butt-end of the gun and cry helplessly: "I'll fire! I'll kill you as sure as I live! Do you hear?" But he dared not shoot. If there was no actual rebellion they never fired at those who had been condemned to death. And Tsiganok would gnash his teeth, would curse and spit.
"Are all of us to be hanged?" "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.
Finally one day the warden shouted through the casement window as he passed rapidly: "You've let your chance slip by, you fool! We've found somebody else." "The devil take you! Hang yourself!" snarled Tsiganok, and he stopped dreaming of the execution. But toward the end, the nearer he approached the time, the weight of the fragments of his broken images became unbearable.
And all the way to the prison the soldiers felt that they were not walking but flying through the air as if hypnotized by the prisoner, they felt neither the ground beneath their feet, nor the passage of time, nor themselves. Mishka Tsiganok, like Yanson, had had to spend seventeen days in prison before his execution.
"Good-by, master!" called Tsiganok loudly. "We'll meet each other in the other world, you'll see! Don't turn away from me. When you see me, bring me some water to drink it will be hot there for me!" "Good-by!" "I don't want to be hanged!" said Yanson drowsily. Werner took him by the hand, and then the Esthonian walked a few steps alone. But later they saw him stop and fall down in the snow.
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.
The mortal anguish of him who is to be assassinated, the wild joy of the murderer, the dreadful warning, the call, the gloom and loneliness of a stormy autumn night all this rang in his piercing shriek, which was neither human nor beastly. The presiding officer shouted then waved his arm at Tsiganok, and Tsiganok obediently became silent.
The lanterns beyond the trees became motionless. They awaited an outcry, a voice, some kind of noise but it was just as quiet there as it was among them and the yellow lanterns were motionless. "Oh, my God!" some one cried hoarsely and wildly. They looked about. It was Tsiganok, writhing in agony at the thought of death. "They are hanging!" They turned away from him, and again it became quiet.
"My love which is as broad as the sea," echoed Sergey, thoughtfully, carried away by the sound of her voice and by her words. "My love which is as broad as the sea," repeated Werner, and suddenly he spoke wonderingly, cheerfully: "Musya, how young you are!" Suddenly Tsiganok whispered warmly, out of breath, right into Werner's ear: "Master! master! There's the forest! My God! what's that?
Must I go alone, then? My God! How is it to be?" Musya stepped forward and said softly: "You may go with me." Tsiganok stepped back and rolled the whites of his eyes wildly. "With you!" "Yes." "Just think of her! What a little girl! And you're not afraid? If you are, I would rather go alone!" "No, I am not afraid." Tsiganok grinned. "Just think of her! But do you know that I am a murderer?
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