In the village he imagined Dunayka, his 'little soul', as the Cossacks call a man's mistress, and thought of her with vexation.

Silvery mists, a sign of coming morning, glittered white above the water, and not far from him young eagles were whistling and flapping their wings.

At last the crowing of a cock reached him from the distant village, followed by the long-sustained note of another, which was again answered by yet other voices.
'Time to wake them,' thought Lukashka, who had finished his ramrod and felt his eyes growing heavy.

Turning to his comrades he managed to make out which pair of legs belonged to whom, when it suddenly seemed to him that he heard something splash on the other side of the Terek.

He turned again towards the horizon beyond the hills, where day was breaking under the upturned crescent, glanced at the outline of the opposite bank, at the Terek, and at the now distinctly visible driftwood upon it.