War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [327]
“Halloolooloo!” shouted Nikolai.
The red Lyubim overtook Milka, precipitously threw himself at the wolf, and seized him by the hindquarters, but in the same second became frightened and jumped over to the other side. The wolf crouched, clacked his teeth, got up again, and loped on, accompanied at two yards’ distance by all the dogs, who would not go nearer to him.
“He’ll get away! No, it’s impossible,” thought Nikolai, continuing to shout in a hoarse voice.
“Karai! Halloo!…” he shouted, his eyes seeking the old dog, his only hope. Karai, with all his aged strength, stretching out as much as he could, looking at the wolf, galloped heavily alongside the beast, trying to head him off. But it was clear from the speed of the wolf and the slowness of the dog that Karai’s calculation was wrong. Not far ahead of him now, Nikolai saw the woods, on reaching which the wolf would certainly get away. Ahead of them dogs appeared, and a hunter galloping almost straight towards them. There was still hope. A young, lanky, brindled dog, unknown to Nikolai, from another pack, flew swiftly at the wolf from the front and nearly bowled him over. The wolf got up more quickly than might have been expected of him, rushed at the brindled dog, snapped his teeth—and the bloodied dog, its side ripped open, let out a piercing squeal, burying its head in the ground.
“Karayushka! Old boy!…” wept Nikolai.
Thanks to the delay, the old dog, his matted fur hanging from his haunches, headed off the wolf, and was now within five paces of him. The wolf, as if sensing the danger, gave Karai a sidelong glance, tucked his tail still further between his legs, and increased his pace. But here—Nikolai only saw that something happened with Karai—he was instantly on top of the wolf and rolled head over heels with him into a ditch in front of them.
That moment, when Nikolai saw the dogs swarming over the wolf in the ditch, saw under them the wolf’s gray fur, his outstretched hind leg, and his frightened and gasping head with its ears laid back (Karai had him by the throat)—the moment when Nikolai saw that was the happiest moment of his life. He had already taken hold of the pommel so as to dismount and stab the wolf, when the beast’s head suddenly thrust itself out from the mass of dogs, then his front legs stood up on the edge of the ditch. The wolf clacked his teeth (Karai no longer had him by the throat), leaped out of the ditch with his hind legs, and, tucking in his tail, moved off, drawing away from the dogs again. Karai, his fur bristling, probably bruised or wounded, had difficulty climbing out of the ditch.
“My God! Why?…” Nikolai cried in despair.
The uncle’s hunter rode across the wolf’s path from the other side, and his dogs again stopped the beast. He was again surrounded.
Nikolai, his groom, the uncle, and his hunter all rode round and round the beast, hallooing, shouting, preparing to dismount at any moment, when the wolf sat on his haunches, and leaping forward each time the wolf shook himself and made a move towards the timber, which would save him.
From the beginning of this chase, Danilo, hearing the hallooing, had ridden out to the edge of the woods. He saw Karai take the wolf and stopped his horse, supposing the business was over. But when the hunters did not dismount, when the wolf shook himself and again began to make off, Danilo sent his brown horse not towards the wolf, but in a straight line towards the timber, just as Karai had done, to head off the wolf. Thanks to this direction, he rode up to the wolf just as the uncle’s dogs stopped him a second time.
Danilo rode silently, holding an unsheathed dagger in his left hand, and threshing the taut flanks of his brown horse with his whip as if it was a flail.
Nikolai did not see or hear Danilo until the brown horse, breathing heavily, snorted past him, and he heard the sound of a body falling and saw that Danilo was already