The Cossacks were at their supper in the clay vestibule of the cordon; they were seated on the floor, around a low Tartar table, and conversing about whose turn it would be to go to the "secret."
"Who goes today?" cried one of the Cossacks, turning to the under-officer through the open door of the hut.
"Who will go?" replied the under-officer. "Uncle Burlák has been there, Fomúshkin has been," he said, with some indecision. "You go, eh? You and Nazárka," he turned to Lukáshka, "and Ergushóv will go, if he has had his sleep."
"You never have your sleep, how should he?" said Nazarka, half-loud.
The Cossacks laughed.
Ergushóv was the very Cossack who was drunk, and had been asleep near the hut. He had just waked and, rubbing his eyes, waddled into the vestibule.
Lukáshka rose, and got his gun in shape.
"Be quick about it; have your supper, and go!" said the under-officer. Without waiting for an expression of consent, the under-officer closed the door, evidently having little hope that the Cossacks would obey him. "If I were not commanded, I would not send you; but the captain might run into us, before we know it. And besides, they say eight abréks have crossed over."
"Well, we must go," said Ergushóv, "it's the order! You can't do otherwise, —times are such. I say, we must go."
Lukáshka, in the meantime, held with both hands a big piece of the pheasant before his mouth, and, looking now at the under-officer, and now at Nazárka, was apparently quite indifferent to what was going on around him, and laughed at both of them. The Cossacks had not yet gone away to the "secret" when Uncle Eróshka, who
