We flew along the river-bank. 'Why did you tear me away from there, from
that lovely country?' I began. 'Were you envious, or was it jealousy in
you?'

The lips of Alice faintly stirred, and again there was a menacing light in
her eyes.... But her whole face grew stony again at once.

'I want to go home,' I said.

'Wait a little, wait a little,' answered Alice. 'To-night is a great night.
It will not soon return. You may be a spectator.... Wait a little.'

And we suddenly flew across the Volga in a slanting direction, keeping
close to the water's surface, with the low impetuous flight of swallows
before a storm. The broad waves murmured heavily below us, the sharp river
breeze beat upon us with its strong cold wing ... the high right bank began
soon to rise up before us in the half-darkness. Steep mountains appeared
with great ravines between. We came near to them.

'Shout: "Lads, to the barges!"' Alice whispered to me. I remembered the
terror I had suffered at the apparition of the Roman phantoms. I felt weary
and strangely heavy, as though my heart were ebbing away within me. I
wished not to utter the fatal words; I knew beforehand that in response to
them there would appear, as in the wolves' valley of the Freischuetz, some
monstrous thing; but my lips parted against my will, and in a weak forced
voice I shouted, also against my will: 'Lads, to the barges!'


XVI