"Then where are they?"
"How the blazes should I know!" the guard finally exploded. "I'm not supposed to guard them, am I?
Why was I put on duty?
To see that nobody pinched the chambers, and that's what I've done.
Your chambers are safe and sound.
But there's no law that says I must chase after your chickens.
Goodness only knows what they'll be like. Maybe you won't be able to catch them on a bicycle."
This somewhat deflated Alexander Semyonovich. He muttered something else, then relapsed into a state of perplexity.
It was a strange business indeed.
In the first chamber, which had been switched on before the others, the two eggs at the very base of the ray had broken open.
One of them had even rolled to one side.
The empty shell was lying on the asbestos floor in the ray.
"The devil only knows," muttered Alexander Semyonovich. "The windows are closed and they couldn't have flown away over the roof, could they?"
He threw back his head and looked at some big holes in the glass roof.
"Of course, they couldn't, Alexander Semyonovich!" exclaimed Dunya in surprise. "Chickens can't fly.
They must be here somewhere. Chuck, chuck, chuck," she called, peering into the corners of the conservatory, which were cluttered with dusty flower pots, bits of boards and other rubbish.
But no chicks answered her call.
The whole staff spent about two hours running round the farmyard, looking for the runaway chickens and found nothing.
The day passed in great excitement.
The duty guard on the chambers was reinforced by the watchman, who had strict orders to look through the chamber windows every quarter of an hour and call Alexander Semyonovich if anything happened.
The guard sat huffily by the door, holding his rifle between his knees.
What with all the worry Alexander Semyonovich did not have lunch until nearly two.
After lunch he slept for an hour or so in the cool shade on the former She-remetev ottoman, had a refreshing drink of the farm's kvass and slipped into the conservatory to make sure everything was alright.
The old watchman was lying on his stomach on some bast matting and staring through the observation window of the first chamber.
The guard was keeping watch by the door.
But there was a piece of news: the eggs in the third chamber, which had been switched on last, were making a kind of gulping, hissing sound, as if something inside them were whimpering.
"They're hatching out alright," said Alexander Semyonovich. "That's for sure.
See?" he said to the watchman.
"Aye, it's most extraordinary," the latter replied in a most ambiguous tone, shaking his head.
Alexander Semyonovich squatted by the chambers for a while, but nothing hatched out. So he got up, stretched and announced that he would not leave the grounds, but was going for a swim in the pond and must be called if there were any developments.
He went into the palace to his bedroom with its two narrow iron bedsteads, rumpled bedclothes and piles of green apples and millet on the floor for the newly-hatched chickens, took a towel and, on reflection, his flute as well to play at leisure over the still waters.
Then he ran quickly out of the palace, across the farmyard and down the willow-lined path to the pond.
He walked briskly, swinging the towel, with the flute under his arm.
The sky shimmered with heat through the willows, and his aching body begged to dive into the water.
On the right of Feight began a dense patch of burdock, into which he spat en passant.
All at once there was a rustling in the tangle of big leaves, as if someone was dragging a log.
With a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach, Alexander Semyonovich turned his head towards the burdock in surprise.
There had not been a sound from the pond for two days.
The rustling stopped, and above the burdock the smooth surface of the pond flashed invitingly with the grey roof of the changing hut.
Some dragon-flies darted to and fro in front of Alexander Semyonovich.
He was about to turn off to the wooden platform, when there was another rustle in the burdock accompanied this time by a short hissing like steam coming out of an engine.
Alexander Semyonovich tensed and stared at the dense thicket of weeds.
At that moment the voice of Feight's wife rang out, and her white blouse flashed in and out through the raspberry bushes. "Wait for me, Alexander Semyonovich. I'm coming for a swim too."
His wife was hurrying to the pond, but Alexander Se-myonovich's eyes were riveted on the burdock and he did not reply.
A greyish olive-coloured log had begun to rise out of the thicket, growing ever bigger before his horrified gaze. The log seemed to be covered with wet yellowish spots.
It began to straighten up, bending and swaying, and was so long that it reached above a short gnarled willow. Then the top of the log cracked, bent down slightly, and something about the height of a Moscow electric lamp-post loomed over Alexander Semyonovich.
Only this something was about three times thicker that a lamp-post and far more beautiful because of its scaly tattooing.
Completely mystified, but with shivers running down his spine, Alexander Semyonovich looked at the top of this terrifying lamp-post, and his heart almost stopped beating.
He turned to ice on the warm August day, and everything went dark before his eyes as if he were looking at the sun through his summer trousers.
On the tip of the log was a head.