Red Stefan Read Online Free PDF Page B

watch him!”
    She looked round at Yuri’s back. He wore a sheepskin coat and cap, very dirty, the cap pulled well down over his ears and the coat high about his neck. He drove in a hunched attitude and might almost have been asleep. As she looked at him, there came, as if from a long way off, a faint sound. Elizabeth found herself listening for it to come again, and when it came, a little louder, she felt as if a drop of ice-cold water had trickled down her spine. She had never heard a wolf’s cry before, but with each repetition she found it more terrifying.
    She turned quickly to Stephen and saw him looking away to the right with a set face. The sound was nearer now and louder. It was like a dog baying, and yet not like. It was sharper, higher, and it had the savage melancholy of hunger in it. Her heart began to thump against her side and a cold sweat of terror broke out on all her limbs. Suddenly the cry rang out so near that the horses shied violently and old Yuri, pulling on the reins with one hand, swung round in his seat and shook the other fist at Stephen whilst he poured out a flood of angry abuse.
    Stephen broke into laughter. The cart swayed from one side of the track to the other, and whilst Yuri was taking both hands to the reins again, Stephen became suddenly aware of the fear in Elizabeth’s eyes. In an instant he had both her hands in his.
    â€œWere you frightened? What a brute beast I am! I wouldn’t frighten you for the world—you do know that, don’t you?”
    Elizabeth felt utterly bewildered. The wolf’s cry had ceased. Stephen was holding her hands and looking into her eyes. His were so blue and so near that she could not meet them. A giddiness came over her and her eyelids fell. In an instant he was holding her hands to his face, not kissing them, but pressing his forehead down upon them, whilst he held them in a grasp from which she had no power to withdraw. She felt as if her senses were leaving her, but his quick penitent words came through the faintness.
    â€œDon’t be frightened—you mustn’t be frightened! I’d cut off my right hand before I’d frighten you. It was only a joke.” Then he was looking at her again, and her eyes were open. “Please forgive me. I wouldn’t let anything hurt you for the world. I never thought I’d take you in. I thought you guessed when I did the birds. Why, a cuckoo couldn’t live here at all—it’s only a summer visitor in England.”
    She said in a soft, confused voice, “The birds?”
    â€œDidn’t you really guess? That’s a tremendously big feather in my cap.”
    She said the same words again. It was as if she couldn’t move her mind to anything fresh.
    â€œThe birds?”
    Stephen’s heart cried out in him: “You’re like a princess in a fairy tale—an enchanted princess who can’t speak. Frozen—that’s what you are—frozen with fear. And I helped to frighten you!”
    Out loud he said, in the voice he would have used to comfort a child,
    â€œYes, the birds, and the wolf, and everything. It was me all the time. You won’t be frightened any more, will you? Please, please don’t be frightened.”
    â€œIt was you?”
    â€œYes. I do it quite well—don’t I? It wants an awful lot of practice. I started when I was only a kid. I can do a lot of birds and animals.”
    â€œBut it sounded right over there.”
    He nodded.
    â€œThat’s what takes such a lot of practice, getting it to sound from the right distance and direction—and you mustn’t let a muscle of your face move, or it gives you away. You were looking at me when I was doing the wolf. It was pretty good to take you in when you were so close.”
    She drew her hands away from him. This time he let them go.
    â€œIt was stupid of me to be frightened, but—when I looked at you—you looked—as if we were