Near by, the Terek murmured in the awakened wood and, greeting the morning, the pheasants called to one another.

The Cossacks stood still and silent around the dead man, gazing at him.

The brown body, with nothing on but the wet blue trousers held by a girdle over the sunken stomach, was well shaped and handsome.

The muscular arms lay stretched straight out by his sides; the blue, freshly shaven, round head with the clotted wound on one side of it was thrown back.

The smooth tanned forehead contrasted sharply with the shaven part of the head.