Not far from the forest to which he was leading his horse there stretched a small ravine, half overgrown with young oak bushes. Tchertop-hanov went down into it.... Malek-Adel stumbled and almost fell on him.  
'So you would crush me, would you, you damned !' shouted Tchertop-hanov, and, as though in self-defence, he pulled the pistol out of his pocket. He no longer felt furious , but that special of the senses which they say comes over a man before the perpetration of a crime. But his own voice terrified him--it sounded so wild and strange under the cover of dark branches in the close, decaying dampness of the forest ravine! Moreover, in response to his , some great bird suddenly fluttered in a tree-top above his head... Tchertop-hanov . He had, as it were, roused a witness to his act--and where? In that silent place where he should not have met a living creature....
 
'Away with you, devil, to the four winds of heaven!' he muttered, and letting go Malek-Adel's , he gave him a violent blow on the shoulder with the end of the pistol. Malek-Adel turned back, clambered out of the ravine... and ran away. But the thud of his was not long audible. The rising wind confused and blended all sounds together.
 
Tchertop-hanov too slowly clambered out of the ............