But just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true meaning.

All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see. But the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side,and they had to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach, I shouted and beat the side of the carriage, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from the side, so as to give him a chance of reaching us. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway.