ribly they squeezed him, weighed upon him! There his father’s house caught fire! The flames burst out from under the eaves, twisting themselves like snakes across the windows and peered into the house through the door, driving from it a huge cloud of smoke in order to themselves occupy the Berkuts’ living quarters.
Maxim watched the conflagration in a stupor. It seemed as if something in his chest was being torn out of him, consumed by the flames and burned to ashes. When the flames died down, the roof caved in, the coals settled themselves on the scene of his birthplace, and there burst forth from the blazing mass a whole sea of sparks to the sky, Maxim cried out in anguish and jumped to his feet to run somewhere, to save something, but after taking just one step forward, he fell senseless to the ground.
The conflagration had died down, a hot bitter smoke blew over the valley, the battle-cries of the Mongols, who under the leadership of Burunda and Tuhar Wolf had fought with the Tukholians at the entrance to the corridor, had ceased. The night sky had cleared and the stars appeared over Tukhlia. All was peace and quiet in the Mongolian camp, but Maxim still lay as if dead in the middle of the road facing the charred remains of his house. The stars shone mournfully upon his pale, blood-smeared face, a faint rising and falling of his chest the only indication that here lay not a corpse but a living man.
This was the state in which the Mongols found him and at first had feared that he was dead, smothered by the smoke of the conflagration. Not until they threw some water on him, washed his face and gave him a drink of water, did he open his eyes and look about him.
“He’s alive! He’s alive!” the Mongols yowled happily and grasping the half-unconscious, weakened Maxim under the armpits, half-dragged him on the trot to the tent of the boyar.
Tuhar Wolf was alarmed at sight of the detested youth in
152
