Lyamshin hid behind Virginsky. He took an apprehensive peep from time to time and slipped behind him again at once.
When the stones had been tied on and Pyotr Stepanovitch had risen to his feet, Virginsky began faintly shuddering all over, clasped his hands, and cried out bitterly at the top of his voice:
"It's not the right thing, it's not, it's not at all!"
He would perhaps have added something more to his belated exclamation, but Lyamshin did not let him finish: he suddenly seized him from behind and squeezed him with all his might, uttering an unnatural shriek.
There are moments of violent emotion, of terror, for instance, when a man will cry out in a voice not his own, unlike anything one could have anticipated from him, and this has sometimes a very terrible effect.
Lyamshin gave vent to a scream more animal than human.
Squeezing Virginsky from behind more and more tightly and convulsively, he went on shrieking without a pause, his mouth wide open and his eyes starting out of his head, keeping up a continual patter with his feet, as though he were beating a drum.
Virginsky was so scared that he too screamed out like a madman, and with a ferocity, a vindictiveness that one could never have expected of Virginsky. He tried to pull himself away from Lyamshin, scratching and punching him as far as he could with his arms behind him.
Erkel at last helped to pull Lyamshin away.
But when, in his terror, Virginsky had skipped ten paces away from him, Lyamshin, catching sight of Pyotr Stepanovitch, began yelling again and flew at him.
Stumbling over the corpse, he fell upon Pyotr Stepanovitch, pressing his head to the latter's chest and gripping him so tightly in his arms that Pyotr Stepanovitch, Tolkatchenko, and Liputin could all of them do nothing at the first moment.
Pyotr Stepanovitch shouted, swore, beat him on the head with his fists. At last, wrenching himself away, he drew his revolver and put it in the open mouth of Lyamshin, who was still yelling and was by now tightly held by Tolkatchenko, Erkel, and Liputin. But Lyamshin went on shrieking in spite of the revolver.
At last Erkel, crushing his silk handkerchief into a ball, deftly thrust it into his mouth and the shriek ceased.
Meantime Tolkatchenko tied his hands with what was left of the rope.
"It's very strange," said Pyotr Stepanovitch, scrutinising the madman with uneasy wonder.
He was evidently struck.
"I expected something very different from him," he added thoughtfully.
They left Erkel in charge of him for a time.
They had to make haste to get rid of the corpse: there had been so much noise that someone might have heard.
Tolkatchenko and Pyotr Stepanovitch took up the lanterns and lifted the corpse by the head, while Liputin and Virginsky took the feet, and so they carried it away.
With the two stones it was a heavy burden, and the distance was more than two hundred paces.
Tolkatchenko was the strongest of them.
He advised them to keep in step, but no one answered him and they all walked anyhow.
Pyotr Stepanovitch walked on the right and, bending forward, carried the dead man's head on his shoulder while with the left hand he supported the stone.
As Tolkatchenko walked more than half the way without thinking of helping him with the stone, Pyotr Stepanovitch at last shouted at him with an oath.
It was a single, sudden shout. They all went on carrying the body in silence, and it was only when they reached the pond that Virginsky, stooping under his burden and seeming to be exhausted by the weight of it, cried out again in the same loud and wailing voice:
"It's not the right thing, no, no, it's not the right thing!"
The place to which they carried the dead man at the extreme end of the rather large pond, which was the farthest of the three from the house, was one of the most solitary and unfrequented spots in the park, especially at this late season of the year.
At that end the pond was overgrown with weeds by the banks.
They put down the lantern, swung the corpse and threw it into the pond.
They heard a muffled and prolonged splash.
Pyotr Stepanovitch raised the lantern and every one followed his example, peering curiously to see the body sink, but nothing could be seen: weighted with the two stones, the body sank at once.
The big ripples spread over the surface of the water and quickly passed away.
It was over.
Virginsky went off with Erkel, who before giving up Lyamshin to Tolkatchenko brought him to Pyotr Stepanovitch, reporting to the latter that Lyamshin had come to his senses, was penitent and begged forgiveness, and indeed had no recollection of what had happened to him.
Pyotr Stepanovitch walked off alone, going round by the farther side of the pond, skirting the park.
This was the longest way.
To his surprise Liputin overtook him before he got half-way home.
"Pyotr Stepanovitch! Pyotr Stepanovitch! Lyamshin will give information!"
"No, he will come to his senses and realise that he will be the first to go to Siberia if he did.
No one will betray us now.
Even you won't."
"What about you?"
"No fear! I'll get you all out of the way the minute you attempt to turn traitors, and you know that.
But you won't turn traitors.
Have you run a mile and a half to tell me that?"
"Pyotr Stepanovitch, Pyotr Stepanovitch, perhaps we shall never meet again!"
"What's put that into your head?"
"Only tell me one thing."
"Well, what?