He held out his hand to the priest, who changed the cross back into his left hand, and after pressing Svetlogoúb’s hand, descended from the scaffold, trying not to look him in the face. The drums began to roll again, deafening every other sound. After the priest, a man of medium height with sloping shoulders and muscular arms, and wearing a pea-jacket over his Russian shirt, approached Svetlogoúb with rapid steps, shaking the boards of the scaffold. This man glanced rapidly at Svetlogoúb, came quite close up to him, enveloping him in a disagreeable odour of spirits and perspiration, and with clutching fingers took him by the arms just above the wrists, and pressing them together so that they hurt, twisted them behind Svetlogoúb’s back and tied them there tightly. After that, the hangman stood for a moment or two as if considering something, looking first at Svetlogoúb, then at some things he had brought with him and had put down on the scaffold, and then at the rope dangling above. Having made his observations, he went up to the rope, did something to it, and moved Svetlogoúb forward, nearer to it and to the edge of the scaffold.