Nazarka awoke, spoke a little, and fell asleep again.

Lukashka feeling bored got up, drew the knife from his dagger-handle and began to fashion his stick into a ramrod.

His head was full of the Chechens who lived over there in the mountains, and of how their brave lads came across and were not afraid of the Cossacks, and might even now be crossing the river at some other spot.

He thrust himself out of his hiding-place and looked along the river but could see nothing.

And as he continued looking out at intervals upon the river and at the opposite bank, now dimly distinguishable from the water in the faint moonlight, he no longer thought about the Chechens but only of when it would be time to wake his comrades, and of going home to the village.