“It’s for you to command!” said Dron dejectedly.

“Ay, Dron, drop it!” repeated Alpatitch, taking his hand out of the bosom of his coat, and pointing with a solemn gesture to the ground under Dron’s feet. “I can see right through you; and more than that, I can see three yards into the earth under you,” he said, looking at the ground under Dron’s feet.

Dron was disconcerted; he looked furtively at Alpatitch, and dropped his eyes again.

“You drop this nonsense, and tell the folks to pack up to leave their homes and go to Moscow, and to get ready carts to-morrow morning for the princess’s luggage; and don’t you go to the meeting. Do you hear?”

All at once Dron threw himself at his feet.

“Yakov Alpatitch, discharge me! Take the keys from me; discharge me, for Christ’s sake!”

“Stop that!” said Alpatitch sternly. “I can see through you three yards into the earth,” he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his knowledge of the right day to sow the oats, and his success in pleasing the old prince for twenty years had long ago gained him the reputation of a wizard, and that the power of seeing for three yards under a man is ascribed to wizards.

Dron got up, and would have said something, but Alpatitch interrupted him.

“What’s this you’ve all got in your head? Eh? … What are you thinking about? Eh?”

“What am I to do with the people?” said Dron. “They’re all in a ferment. I do tell them …”

“Oh, I dare say you do,” said Alpatitch. “Are they drinking?” he asked briefly.

“They’re all in a ferment, Yakov Alpatitch; they have got hold of another barrel.”

“Then you listen to me. I’ll go to the police-captain and you tell them so, and tell them to drop all this and get the carts ready.”

“Certainly,” answered Dron.

Yakov Alpatitch did not insist further. He had much experience in managing the peasants, and knew that the chief means for securing obedience was not to show the slightest suspicion that they could do anything but obey. Having wrung from Dron a submissive “certainly,” Yakov Alpatitch rested content with it, though he had more than doubts—he had a conviction—that the carts would not be provided without the intervention of the military authorities.

And as a fact when evening came, the carts had not been provided. There had been again a village meeting at the tavern, and at the meeting it had been resolved to drive the horses out into the forest and not to provide the conveyances. Without saying a word of all this to the princess, Alpatitch ordered his own baggage to be unloaded from the waggons that had come from Bleak Hills and the horses to be taken from them for the princess’s carriage, while he rode off himself to the police authorities.