Chapter 6

The male population of the village spend their time on military
expeditions and in the cordon--or 'at their posts', as the
Cossacks say. Towards evening, that same Lukashka the Snatcher,
about whom the old women had been talking, was standing on a
watch-tower of the Nizhni-Prototsk post situated on the very banks
of the Terek. Leaning on the railing of the tower and screwing up
his eyes, he looked now far into the distance beyond the Terek,
now down at his fellow Cossacks, and occasionally he addressed the
latter. The sun was already approaching the snowy range that
gleamed white above the fleecy clouds. The clouds undulating at
the base of the mountains grew darker and darker. The clearness of
evening was noticeable in the air. A sense of freshness came from
the woods, though round the post it was still hot. The voices of
the talking Cossacks vibrated more sonorously than before. The
moving mass of the Terek's rapid brown waters contrasted more
vividly with its motionless banks. The waters were beginning to
subside and here and there the wet sands gleamed drab on the banks
and in the shallows. The other side of the river, just opposite
the cordon, was deserted; only an immense waste of low-growing
reeds stretched far away to the very foot of the mountains. On the
low bank, a little to one side, could be seen the flat-roofed clay
houses and the funnel-shaped chimneys of a Chechen village. The
sharp eyes of the Cossack who stood on the watch-tower followed,
through the evening smoke of the pro-Russian village, the tiny
moving figures of the Chechen women visible in the distance in
their red and blue garments.

Although the Cossacks expected abreks to cross over and attack
them from the Tartar side at any moment, especially as it was May
when the woods by the Terek are so dense that it is difficult to
pass through them on foot and the river is shallow enough in
places for a horseman to ford it, and despite the fact that a
couple of days before a Cossack had arrived with a circular from
the commander of the regiment announcing that spies had reported
the intention of a party of some eight men to cross the Terek, and
ordering special vigilance--no special vigilance was being
observed in the cordon. The Cossacks, unarmed and with their
horses unsaddled just as if they were at home, spent their time
some in fishing, some in drinking, and some in hunting. Only the
horse of the man on duty was saddled, and with its feet hobbled
was moving about by the brambles near the wood, and only the
sentinel had his Circassian coat on and carried a gun and sword.
The corporal, a tall thin Cossack with an exceptionally long back
and small hands and feet, was sitting on the earth-bank of a hut
with his beshmet