CRASNOI LAIS. 29 



look down long vistas of frozen hazels with tall 

 oaks rising above them, through whose quaintly 

 twisting limbs the intense metallic light of the 

 winter moon gleamed down on the sparkling snow, 

 or catching the icicles that hung in huge clusters 

 from them drew from them all manner of pale 

 prismatic colours. Every now and again a dark sha- 

 dow glided over the snow, and a sound like a devil's 

 low chuckling laugh told one that the substance 

 of that shadow was the great eagle owl, whose 

 strong silent pinions were creeping, a very shadow 

 of death, over some doomed hare. At one time a 

 company of wolves seemed to have gathered round, 

 for as soon as a long vibrating howl had moaned 

 itself into silence on one side, another took up the 

 strain and startled the forest on the other. All 

 round us this music was kept up, but not a single 

 wolf showed himself either to my companions or 

 myself. Suddenly there was a loud report as if 

 an enormous piece of artillery had been fired, and 

 as the echoes thundered through the forest, the 

 whole seemed to wake at once to a fiendish riot of 

 strange sound. Every prowling beast and weird 

 night-bird screamed hi concert, and then all was 

 silence again. This was caused by the cracking 

 of the ice on the Kuban some miles off. 



After an hour of intense enjoyment of this 

 kind, I was roused by a distant crashing, as though 

 a regiment was noisily breaking its way through 



