accomplices in a Dionysian sacrifice and orgy.

And the clouds kept on gaining! Far away I heard the storm wind and
the clamour of the sea. The thunder moaned and sobbed. I hurried along
the deserted road and asked my heart for a village, a house, a church,
a cave, anything to shield from the oncoming drench.

Spying a light far away on a hill, I left the road and plunged towards
it. I went over many maize-fields, by narrow paths through the
tall waving grain, the lightning playing like firelight among the
sheath-like leaves. I crossed a wide tobacco plantation and approached
the light on the hill, by a long, heavily-rutted cart-track. This led
right up to the doors of a farmhouse. Big surly dogs came rushing out
at me, but I clumped them off with my stick, and having much doubt in
my mind as to the sort of reception I should get, I knocked at the
windows and doors. I expected to be met by a man with a gun, for the
dogs had made such a rumpus that any one might have been alarmed.

The door was opened by a tall Russian peasant.

"May I spend the night here?" I asked.

The man smiled and put out his arms as if to embrace me.

"Yes, of course. Why ask? Come inside," he replied.

"I thought of sleeping in the open air," I added, "but the storm
coming up I saw I should be drenched."

"Why sleep outside when man is ready to receive you?" said the