Kondrat laughed again. And Yegor smiled. 'So the fences creaked and
that was all?' he commented. 'There was nothing more seen of them,'
Kondrat assented. 'They were simply gone in a flash.'

We were all silent again. Suddenly Kondrat started and sat up.

'Eh, mercy upon us!' he ejaculated; 'surely it's never a fire!'

'Where, where?' we asked.

'Yonder, see, in front, where we 're going.... A fire it is! Efrem
there, Efrem--why, he foretold it! If it's not his doing, the damned
fellow!...'

I glanced in the direction Kondrat was pointing. Two or three miles
ahead of us, behind a green strip of low fir saplings, there really was
a thick column of dark blue smoke slowly rising from the ground,
gradually twisting and coiling into a cap-shaped cloud; to the right
and left of it could be seen others, smaller and whiter.

A peasant, all red and perspiring, in nothing but his shirt, with his
hair hanging dishevelled about his scared face, galloped straight
towards us, and with difficulty stopped his hastily bridled horse.

'Mates,' he inquired breathlessly, 'haven't you seen the foresters?'

'No, we haven't. What is it? is the forest on fire?'

'Yes. We must get the people together, or else if it gets to Trosnoe