filling, carefully plugging each one with a ball wrapped in a rag.
Then, having tested the loaded cartridges with his teeth and
examined them, he put down the bag.

'I say, Mother, I told you the bags wanted mending; have they been
done?' he asked.

'Oh yes, our dumb girl was mending something last night. Why, is
it time for you to be going back to the cordon? I haven't seen
anything of you!'

'Yes, as soon as I have got ready I shall have to go,' answered
Lukashka, tying up the gunpowder. 'And where is our dumb one?
Outside?'

'Chopping wood, I expect. She kept fretting for you. "I shall not
see him at all!" she said. She puts her hand to her face like
this, and clicks her tongue and presses her hands to her heart as
much as to say--"sorry." Shall I call her in? She understood all
about the abrek.'

'Call her,' said Lukashka. 'And I had some tallow there; bring it:
I must grease my sword.'

The old woman went out, and a few minutes later Lukashka's dumb
sister came up the creaking steps and entered the hut. She was six
years older than her brother and would have been extremely like
him had it not been for the dull and coarsely changeable
expression (common to all deaf and dumb people) of her face. She
wore a coarse smock all patched; her feet were bare and muddy, and