A very few managed to hide in the bushes and among the rushes around the pond.
The servants and gendarmes were slaughtered wholesale.
Then Makhno's bravos harnessed carts, loading them till daybreak with all sorts of objects, including arms.
The sun rose over the flaming estate.
This audacious raid made an overwhelming impression in the village.
By that time the peasants were completely crushed—by the Germans, by the newly-introduced proprietors, by the vindictive promptitude of the gendarmes' reprisals.
Not trusting the peasants, the landowners refused to give their lands for rent, and were demanding not merely the crops of the present harvest, but the return in kind of last year's losses.
The peasants could do nothing but bemoan their plight.
Then Makhno appeared and started a terror.
The rumour flew from village to hamlet that a champion had arisen.
The peasants took fresh heart.
Estates went up in flames.
Wheat stacks blazed in the steppe.
Guerrilla detachments made audacious raids on steamers and barges laden with grain for Germany.
The disturbance spread to the right bank of the Dnieper.
Orders to quell the rioting were given to Austrian and German troops.
Hundreds of punitive detachments were sent about the country.
And then Makhno, with his small, but well-armed detachment, took the initiative in attacking the Austrian troops.
At that time Makhno's army was of no great size.
Its permanent nucleus consisted of two or three hundred daredevils.
They included Black Sea sailors, war veterans for one reason or another unable to show themselves in their native villages, lesser leaders, merging their detachments with Makhno's, and men without kith or kin, fighting for the hell Of it and for a gay life.
And gradually individual anarchists, the so-called "Fighters," getting wind of the new bands roving on horseback at their own sweet will, went over to the army.
Arriving at Makhno's headquarters on foot, ragged and hungry, a bomb in one pocket and a volume of Kropotkin in the other, the anarchists said to the Old Man:
"We've heard you're a genius.
We want to see if it's true."
"Look your fill," the Old Man would reply.
"You see," said they, "if you're really such a wonder, you'll make the pages of world history.
Who knows—you may be destined to become a second Kropotkin."
"Who knows?" echoed the Old Man.
They followed in the baggage trains of the Old Man, drank with him, uttered wonderful words, which was what he loved most of all, about history and fame.
And gradually a few of them began to be promoted to responsible and conspicuous posts.
And each of these had his cart full of booty, captured in battle: a case of brandy, a barrel of gold, a sack of clothing.
Such individuals were Chaldon, Skoropionov, Yugolobov, Cherednyak, Engarets, "the Frenchman," and many others.
During their prolonged halts they gathered around them brothels well supplied with gay young women, and got up "Athenian nights," assuring the Old Man that such an attitude to the sex question would make for the emancipated life, and that syphilis was a mere trifle, which would not matter a bit after absolute freedom had been achieved.
Makhno called his anarchists reptiles, and was always threatening to have them shot, but he tolerated them for their book-knowledge, and because they understood the meaning of fame.
The army had no permanent headquarters.
It hurled itself from one end of the province to another, on horseback and in military carts, as need arose.
When a raid was meditated, or a battle was imminent, Makhno would dispatch messengers to the villages, himself uttering a rousing speech in some crowded place, at the end of which his followers threw lengths of cloth and print from the carts into the crowd.
In a single day the nucleus of his army was increased by peasant guerrillas.
When the battle was over these volunteers returned no less rapidly to their villages, concealed their arms, and by the time German artillery rattled up in search of the foe, they were lazily scratching themselves at their gates as if all this was nothing to do with them.
The Austrian and German troops were invariably baffled in their search for Makhno, and this ubiquitous devil always seemed to be at their rear.
The guerrillas, like the nomads of old, did not fight any decisive battles, merely scattering over the plain with shouts, whistles, and volleys of firing, on horseback and in carts, only to gather together again at a spot where they were least expected, and make another attack.
The village was now deserted.
Makhno followed the army in a wagon drawn by three horses, with a carpet laid over the floor of it.
It was full noon.
A plump girl, her face disfigured by weeping, her skirts girded high, was sweeping the hut out with a twig broom.
The owner of the hut sat at the open window, sighing heavily as he glanced towards the hills, behind which all the infantry and cavalry had disappeared, and on the crest of which could now be discerned the sails of two windmills peacefully revolving: his conversation with Makhno had apparently not reassured him.
Katya went out to the well, had a wash, and set her clothing to rights.
The master of the house called her to breakfast, and she ate two boiled dumplings and drank some milk.
Then, not knowing what to do with herself, or what she might expect, she seated herself at the window.