About midnight
In Oryol ... . Marya dashed out into the street , but remembering that the children were asleep in the hut , ran back and was burnt with her children ... . Next day they found nothing but bones . '' About midnight Yegorushka and the waggoners were again sitting round a small camp fire . While the dry twigs and stems were burning up , Kiruha and Vassya went off somewhere to get water from a creek ; they vanished into the darkness , but could be heard all the time talking and clinking their pails ; so the creek was not far away . The light from the fire lay a great flickering patch on the earth ; though the moon was bright , yet everything seemed impenetrably black beyond that red patch . The light was in the waggoners ' eyes , and they saw only part of the great road ; almost unseen in the darkness the waggons with the bales and the horses looked like a mountain of undefined shape .