Stanislaus and Anno, who had been rudely awakened from their slumbers by the unusual behaviour of the horses, were now on the _qui vive_.
"Good heavens! What's that?" they cried in chorus.
"What's that, coachman?" shrieked Anno, digging the shivering driver in the back.
"Volki, mistress, volki!" was the reply, and on flew the droshky faster, faster, faster!
To Stanislaus and Anno the word "wolves" came as a stunning shock. All the tales they had ever heard of these ferocious beasts crowded their minds at once. Wolves! was it possible that those dreadful bogies of their childhood--those grim and awful creatures, grotesquely but none the less vividly portrayed in their imagination by horror-loving nurses--were actually close at hand! Supposing the brutes caught them, who would be eaten first? Anno, Stanislaus, or the driver? Would they devour them with their clothes on? If not, how would they get them off? Then, filled with morbid curiosity, they strained their ears and listened. Again--this time nearer, much nearer--came that cry, dismal, protracted, nerve-racking. Nor was that all, for they could now discern the pat-pat, pat-pat of footsteps--long, soft, loping footsteps, as of huge furry paws or naked human feet. However, they could see nothing--nothing but blackness, intensified by the feeble flickering of the droshky's lanterns.
"Faster! drive faster!" Anno shouted, turning round and poking the coachman in the ribs with her umbrella. "Do you want us all to be eaten?"
"I can't mistress, I can't!" the man expostulated; "the horses are outstripping the wind as it is. They can't go quicker." And the driver, consigning Stanislaus and his sister to the innermost recesses of hell, prayed to the Virgin to save him.
Nearer and nearer drew the steps, and again a cry--a cry close behind them, perhaps fifty yards--fifty yards at the most. And as they were trying to locate it there burst into view a gigantic figure--nude and luminous, a figure that glowed like a glow-worm and bent slightly forward as it ran. It covered the ground with long, easy, swinging strides, without any apparent effort. In general form its body was like that of a man, saving that the limbs were longer and covered with short hair, and the feet and hands, besides being larger as a whole, had longer toes and fingers. Its head was partly human, partly lupine--the skull, ears, teeth, and eyes were those of a wolf, whilst the remaining features were those of a man. Its complexion was devoid of colour, startlingly white; its eyes green and lurid, its expression hellish.