'Now it has begun,' a solemn voice seemed to say to him.

The road and the Terek, just becoming visible in the distance, and the Cossack villages and the people, all no longer appeared to him as a joke.

He looked at himself or Vanyusha, and again thought of the mountains.

...

Two Cossacks ride by, their guns in their cases swinging rhythmically behind their backs, the white and bay legs of their horses mingling confusedly ...