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SWAN DA gn EP ER on with his music; he was determined to drink his fill and to shuffle the eards at his ease; but, for the first time in his life, he found no one to play with him. Swanda was not the man to quit the inn so long as he had a kreutzer in his pocket, and on that day he had many of them. By dint of talking, laughing, and drinking he took one of those fixed ideas which are not uncommon among those who look too often in the bottom of their glass, and determined to play at any price; but all his neighbors refused his challenge. Furious at finding no partner, he rose with an unsteady step, paid for what he had drank, and left the inn. “T will go to Drazic,” said he; “the schoolmaster and the bailiff there are honest people who are not afraid of play, and I shall find partners. Hurrah!” The night was clear and the moon shone like a fish’s eye. On reaching a cross-road Swanda raised his eyes by chance, and stopped, mute and motionless. A flock of ravens were croaking over his head, and in front of him rose four posts, standing like pillars, and connected at the top by cross-beams, from each of which swung a halfdevoured corpse. It was a robbers’ gallows, a spectacle by no means amusing to a less stoical spirit than that of Swanda. He had not recovered from the first shudder when suddenly there appeared before him a man dressed in black, 97
