"Ach, the damned mountains!" sighed Laevsky. "How sick I am of
them!"

At the place where the Black River falls into the Yellow, and the
water black as ink stains the yellow and struggles with it, stood
the Tatar Kerbalay's _duhan_, with the Russian flag on the roof and
with an inscription written in chalk: "The Pleasant _duhan_." Near
it was a little garden, enclosed in a hurdle fence, with tables and
chairs set out in it, and in the midst of a thicket of wretched
thornbushes stood a single solitary cypress, dark and beautiful.

Kerbalay, a nimble little Tatar in a blue shirt and a white apron,
was standing in the road, and, holding his stomach, he bowed low
to welcome the carriages, and smiled, showing his glistening white
teeth.

"Good-evening, Kerbalay," shouted Samoylenko. "We are driving on a
little further, and you take along the samovar and chairs! Look
sharp!"

Kerbalay nodded his shaven head and muttered something, and only
those sitting in the last carriage could hear: "We've got trout,
your Excellency."

"Bring them, bring them!" said Von Koren.

Five hundred paces from the _duhan_ the carriages stopped. Samoylenko
selected a small meadow round which there were scattered stones
convenient for sitting on, and a fallen tree blown down by the storm