his back and his beady black eyes bent westward along the prince's
high-road.

On the particular evening with which we have to do the beady eyes looked
not in vain; for presently, far along the road, appeared a black speck
like an insect crawling over the face of a map.

"Ah!" said the starosta. "Ah! he never fails."

Presently a neighbor dropped in to buy some of the dried leaf which the
starosta, honest tradesman, called tea. He found the purveyor of
Cathay's produce at the door.

"Ah!" he said, in a voice thick with vodka. "You see something on the
road?"

"Yes."

"A cart?"

"No, a carriage. It moves too quickly."

A strange expression came over the peasant's face, at no time a pleasing
physiognomy. The bloodshot eyes flared up suddenly like a smouldering
flame in brown paper. The unsteady, drink-sodden lips twitched. The man
threw up his shaggy head, upon which hair and beard mingled in unkempt
confusion. He glared along the road with eyes and face aglow with a
sullen, beast-like hatred.

"A carriage! Then it is for the castle."