Stay still.’ said I, ‘and make no sign, and meanwhile, maybe, I shall think of something.⁠ ⁠…’ Right!⁠ ⁠… I prayed to God and the Lord put the thought into my mind.⁠ ⁠… I clambered up on my chaise and softly,⁠ ⁠… softly so that no one should hear, began pulling out the straw in the thatch, made a hole and crept out, crept out.⁠ ⁠… Then I jumped off the roof and ran along the road as fast as I could. I ran and ran till I was nearly dead.⁠ ⁠… I ran maybe four miles without taking breath, if not more. Thank God I saw a village. I ran up to a hut and began tapping at a window. ‘Good Christian people,’ I said, and told them all about it, ‘do not let a Christian soul perish.⁠ ⁠…’ I waked them all up.⁠ ⁠… The peasants gathered together and went with me,⁠ ⁠… one with a cord, one with an oak-stick, others with pitchforks.⁠ ⁠… We broke in the gates of the innyard and went straight to the cellar.⁠ ⁠… And the robbers had just finished sharpening their knives and were going to kill the merchant. The peasants took them, every one of them, bound them and carried them to the police. The merchant gave them three hundred roubles in his joy, and gave me five gold pieces and put my name down.

They said that they found human bones in the cellar afterwards, heaps and heaps of them.⁠ ⁠… Bones!⁠ ⁠… So they robbed people and then buried them, so that there should be no traces.⁠ ⁠… Well, afterwards they were punished at Morshansk.”

Panteley had finished his story, and he looked round at his listeners. They were gazing at him in silence. The water was boiling by now and Styopka was skimming off the froth.

“Is the fat ready?” Kiruha asked him in a whisper.

“Wait a little.⁠ ⁠… Directly.”

Styopka, his eyes fixed on Panteley as though he were afraid that the latter might begin some story before he was back, ran to the wagons; soon he came back with a little wooden bowl and began pounding some lard in it.