him. Apparently the air of the Tukholian valley was not conducive to sharp Mongolian discipline.
But where was Maxim? How did he fare as a prisoner?
Maxim sat in the middle of the Tukholian main road, shackled with heavy chains, as it happened, exactly across from his father’s homestead with his face turned to the yard in which he had danced as a child and only yesterday walked about freely, occupied with the daily chores and over which today moved crowds of hateful Mongols. They had brought him here on a horse and when the order had come to halt and burn the village they threw him off the horse into the street. No one touched him or guarded him but it was impossible to run away for throngs of Mongols wove back and forth about him, yelling, ruining and searching for booty.
Maxim was hardly conscious of what was transpiring around him. He sat there immovably, like a milestone by the roadside. His mind was a void. Thoughts refused to flow together or to shape themselves. Even his visual impressions declined to take definite form, flickering and glimmering before his eyes like frightened black birds. He felt clearly only one thing, that the chains pressed into his flesh like cold iron snakes sucking all the strength out of his body and all the thoughts from his brain.
All at once the flames had burst around him, the smoke spread itself over the roadway in thick clouds and enveloped Maxim, smarting his eyes and taking away his breath. Tukhlia was on fire! Maxim sat in the center of the conflagration and did not stir. The wind whirled the smoke, showering him with sparks and blew the heated air upon him, but Maxim, his tongue pasted to the roof of his mouth, his heart choking him, seemed unaware of it all. He would have been glad to die in the conflagration, to fly up like a golden spark and then die out, there in the clear cool sky, somewhere near the twinkling stars. But the chains, those insufferable fetters! How hor-
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