Pan Michael

Only the hope that perhaps that detachment sent in pursuit, or those which he left on the road, would bring her back, restrained him from despair. He clung to that hope as a drowning man to a plank, and that gave him strength; he could not think of losing her, for he was thinking too much of the moment in which he would find her and take her.

He remained at the gate till the slaughtered town had grown still. Stillness came soon, for the bands of Krychinski and Adurovich numbered almost as many heads as the town; therefore the burning outlasted the groans of men and roared on till evening. Azya dismounted and went with slow steps to a spacious room in the middle of which sheepskins were spread; on these he sat and awaited the coming of the two captains.

They came soon, and with them the sotniks. Delight was on the faces of all, for the booty had surpassed expectation; the town had grown much since the time of the peasant incursion, and was wealthy. They had taken about a hundred young women, and a crowd of children of ten years old and upward; these could be sold with profit in the markets of the East. Old women, and children too small and unfit for the road, were slaughtered. The hands of the Tartars were streaming with human blood, and their sheepskin coats had the odor of burning flesh. All took their seats around Azya.

"Only a pile of glowing embers behind us," said Krychinski. "Before the command returns we might go to Yampol; there is as much wealth of every kind there as in Rashkoff, – perhaps more."

"No," answered Azya, "men of mine are in Yampol who will burn the place; but it is time for us to go to the lands of the Khan and the Sultan."

"At thy command! We will return with glory and booty," said the captains and the sergeants.

"There are still women here in the fortalice, and that noble who reared me," said Azya. "A just reward belongs to them."

He clapped his hands and gave command to bring the prisoners.

They were brought without delay, – Pani Boski in tears; Zosia, pale as a kerchief; Eva and her father. Old Pan Novoveski's hands and feet were bound with ropes. All were terrified, but still more astonished at what had taken place. Eva was lost in conjectures as to what had become of Pani Volodyovski, and wondered why Azya had not shown himself. She, not knowing why there was slaughter in the town, nor why she and her friends were bound as captives, concluded that it was a question of carrying her away; that Azya, not wishing in his pride to beg her hand of her father, had fallen into a rage simply out of love for her, and had determined to take her by violence. This was all terrible in itself; but Eva, at least, was not trembling for her own life.

The prisoners did not recognize Azya, for his face was nearly concealed; but all the more did terror seize the knees of the women at the first moment, for they judged that wild Tartars had in some incomprehensible manner destroyed the Lithuanian Tartars and gained possession of Rashkoff. But the sight of Krychinski and Adurovich convinced them that they were still in the hands of Lithuanian Tartars.

They looked at one another some time in silence; at last old Pan Novoveski asked, with an uncertain but powerful voice, —

"In whose hands are we?"

Azya began to unwind the bandages from his head, and from beneath them his face soon appeared, beautiful on a time, though wild, deformed now forever, with a broken nose and a black and blue spot instead of an eye, – a face dreadful, collected in cold vengeance and with a smile like convulsive contortions. He was silent for a moment, then fixed his burning eye on the old man and said, —

"In mine, – in the hands of Tugai Bey's son."

But old Novoveski knew him before he spoke; and Eva also knew him, though the heart was straitened in her from terror and disgust at sight of that ghastly visage. The maiden covered her eyes with her unbound hands; and the noble, opening his mouth, began to blink with astonishment and repeat, —

"Azya! Azya!"

"Whom your lordship reared, to whom you were a father, and whose back streamed with blood under your parental hand."

Blood rushed to the noble's head.

"Traitor," said he, "you shall answer for your deeds before a judge. Serpent! I have a son yet."

"And you have a daughter," answered Azya, "for whose sake you gave command to flog me to death; and this daughter I will give now to the last of the horde, so that he may have service and pleasure from her."

"Leader, give her to me!" cried Adurovich, on a sudden.

"Azya! Azya!" cried Eva, throwing herself at his feet, "I have always – "

But he kicked her away with one foot, and Adurovich seized her by the arms and began to drag her along the floor. Pan Novoveski from purple became blue; the ropes squeaked on his arms, as he twisted them, and from his mouth came unintelligible words. Azya rose from the skins and went toward him, at first slowly, then more quickly, like a wild beast preparing to bound on its prey. At last he came near, seized with the contorted fingers of one hand the mustaches of old Novoveski, and with the other fell to beating him without mercy on face and head.

A hoarse bellow was rent from his throat when the noble fell to the floor; Azya knelt on Novoveski's breast, and suddenly the bright gleam of a knife shone in the room.

"Mercy! rescue!" screamed Eva. But Adurovich struck her on the head, and then put his broad hand on her mouth; meanwhile Azya was cutting the throat of Pan Novoveski.

The spectacle was so ghastly that it chilled even the breasts of the Tartars; for Azya, with calculated cruelty, drew his knife slowly across the neck of the ill-fated noble, who gasped and choked awfully. From his open veins the blood spurted more and more violently on the hands of the murderer and flowed in a stream along the floor. Then the rattling and gurgling ceased by degrees; finally air was wheezing in the severed throat, and the feet of the dying man dug the floor in convulsive quivers.

Azya rose; his eyes fell now on the pale and sweet face of Zosia Boski, who seemed dead, for she was hanging senseless on the arm of a Tartar who was holding her, and he said, —

"I will keep this girl for myself, till I give her away or sell her."

Then he turned to the Tartars: "Now only let the pursuit return, and we will go to the lands of the Sultan."

The pursuit returned two days later, but with empty hands. Tugai Bey's son went, therefore, to the land of the Sultan with despair and rage in his heart, leaving behind him a gray and bluish pile of ruins.

CHAPTER XLI

The towns through which Basia passed in going from Hreptyoff to Rashkoff were separated from each other by ten or twelve Ukraine miles,26 and that road by the Dniester was about thirty miles long. It is true that they started each morning in the dark, and did not stop till late in the evening; still, they made the whole journey, including time for refreshment, and in spite of difficult crossings and passages, in three days. People of that time and troops did not make such quick journeys usually; but whoso had the will, or was put to it, could make them. In view of this, Basia calculated that the journey back to Hreptyoff ought to take less time, especially as she was making it on horseback, and as it was a flight in which salvation depended on swiftness.

But she noted her error the first day, for unable to escape on the road by the Dniester, she went through the steppes and had to make broad circuits. Besides she might go astray, and it was probable that she would; she might meet with thawed rivers, impassable, dense forests, swamps not freezing even in winter; she might come to harm from people or beasts, – therefore, though she intended to push on continually, even at night, she was confirmed in the conviction in spite of herself that, even if all went well with her, God knew when she would be in Hreptyoff.

She had succeeded in tearing herself from the arms of Azya; but what would happen farther on? Doubtless anything was better than those infamous arms; still, at thought of what was awaiting her the blood became icy in her veins.

It occurred at once to her that if she spared the horses she might be overtaken by Azya's men, who knew those steppes thoroughly; and to hide from discovery, from pursuit, was almost impossible. They pursued Tartars whole days even in spring and summer when horses' hoofs left no trace on the snow or in soft earth; they read the steppe as an open book; they gazed over those plains like eagles; they knew how to sniff a trail in them like hunting dogs; their whole life was passed in pursuing. Vainly had Tartars gone time and again in the water of streams so as not to leave traces; Cossacks, Lithuanian Tartars, and Cheremis, as well as Polish raiders of the steppe, knew how to find them, to answer their "methods" with "methods," and to attack as suddenly as if they had sprung up through the earth. How was she to escape from such people unless to leave them so far in the rear that distance itself would make pursuit impossible? But in such an event her horses would fall.

"They will fall dead without fail, if they continue to go as they have gone so far," thought Basia, with terror, looking at their wet, steaming sides, and at the foam which was falling in flakes to the ground.

Therefore she slackened their speed from time to time and listened; but in every breath of wind, in the rustling of leaves on the edge of ravines, in the dry rubbing of the withered steppe reeds against one another, in the noise made by the wings of a passing bird, even in the silence of the wilderness, which was sounding in her ears, she heard voices of pursuit, and terrified urged on her horses again, and ran with wild impetus till their snorting declared that they could not continue at that speed.

The burden of loneliness and weakness pressed her down more and more. Ah! what an orphan she felt herself; what regret, as immense as unreasoning, rose in her heart for all people, the nearest and dearest, who had so forsaken her! Then she thought that surely it was God punishing her for her passion for adventures, for her hurrying to every hunt, to expeditions, frequently against the will of her husband; for her giddiness and lack of sedateness.

When she thought of this she wept, and raising her head began to repeat, sobbing, —

"Chastise, but do not desert me! Do not punish Michael! Michael is innocent."

Meanwhile night was approaching, and with it cold, darkness, uncertainty of the road, and alarm. Objects had begun to efface themselves, grow dim, lose definite forms, and also to become, as it were, mysteriously alive and expectant. Protuberances on lofty rocks looked like heads in pointed and round caps, – heads peering out from behind gigantic walls of some kind, and gazing in silence and malignity to see who was passing below. Tree branches, stirred by the breeze, made motions like people: some of these beckoned to Basia as if wishing to call her and confide to her some terrible secret; others seemed to speak and give warning: "Do not come near!" The trunks of uprooted trees seemed like monstrous creatures crouching for a spring. Basia was daring, very daring, but, like all people of that period, she was superstitious. When darkness came down completely, the hair rose on her head, and shivers passed through her body at thought of the unclean powers that might dwell in those regions. She feared vampires especially; belief in them was spread particularly in the Dniester country by reason of nearness to Moldavia, and just the places around Yampol and Rashkoff were ill-famed in that regard. How many people there left the world day by day through sudden death, without confession or absolution! Basia remembered all the tales which the knights had told at Hreptyoff, on evenings at the fireside, – stories of deep valleys in which, when the wind howled, sudden groans were heard of "Jesus, Jesus!" of pale lights in which something was snorting; of laughing cliffs; of pale children, suckling infants with green eyes and monstrous heads, – infants which implored to be taken on horseback, and when taken began to suck blood; finally, of heads without bodies, walking on spider legs; and most terrible of all those ghastlinesses, vampires of full size, or brukolaki, so called in Wallachia, who hurled themselves on people directly.

Then she began to make the sign of the cross, and she did not stop till her hand had grown weak; but even then she repeated the litany, for no other weapons were effective against unclean powers.

The horses gave her consolation, for they showed no fear, snorting briskly. At times she patted her pony, as if wishing in that way to convince herself that she was in a real world.

The night, very dark at first, became clearer by degrees, and at last the stars began to glimmer through the thin mist. For Basia this was an uncommonly favorable circumstance, – first, because her fear decreased; and secondly, because by observing the Great Bear, she could turn to the north, or in the direction of Hreptyoff. Looking on the region about, she calculated that she had gone a considerable distance from the Dniester; for there were fewer rocks, more open country, more hills covered with oak groves, and frequently broad plains. Time after time, however, she was forced to cross ravines, and she went down into them with fear in her heart, for in the depths of those places it was always dark, and a harsh, piercing cold was there. Some were so steep that she was forced to go around them; from this came great loss of time and an addition to the journey.

It was worse, however, with streams and rivers, and a whole system of these flowed from the East to the Dniester. All were thawed, and the horses snorted with fear when they went at night into strange water of unknown depth. Basia crossed only in places where the sloping bank allowed the supposition that the water, widely spread there, was shallow. In fact, it was so in most cases; at some crossings, however, the water reached halfway to the backs of her horses: Basia then knelt, in soldier fashion, on the saddle, and, holding to the pommel, tried not to wet her feet. But she did not succeed always in this, and soon a piercing cold seized her from feet to knees.

"God give me daylight, I will go more quickly," repeated she, from time to time.

At last she rode out onto a broad plain with a sparse forest, and seeing that the horses were barely dragging their legs, she halted for rest. Both stretched their necks to the ground at the same time, and putting forward one foot, began to pluck moss and withered grass eagerly. In the forest there was perfect silence, unbroken save by the sharp breathing of the horses and the crunching of the grass in their powerful jaws.

When they had satisfied, or rather deceived, their first hunger, both horses wished evidently to roll, but Basia might not indulge them in that. She dared not loosen the girths and come to the ground herself, for she wished to be ready at every moment for further flight.

She sat on Azya's horse, however, for her own had carried her from the last resting-place, and though strong, and with noble blood in his veins, he was more delicate than the other.

When she had changed horses, she felt a hunger after the thirst which she had quenched a number of times while crossing the rivers; she began therefore to eat the seeds which she had found in the bag at Azya's saddle-bow. They seemed to her very good, though a little bitter; she ate, thanking God for the unlooked-for refreshment.

But she ate sparingly, so that they might last to Hreptyoff. Soon sleep began to close her eyelids with irresistible power; and when the movement of the horse ceased to give warmth, a sharp cold pierced her. Her feet were perfectly stiff; she felt also an immeasurable weariness in her whole body, especially in her back and shoulders, strained with struggling against Azya. A great weakness seized her, and her eyes closed.

But after a while she opened them with effort. "No! In the daytime, in time of journeying, I will sleep," thought she; "but if I sleep now I shall freeze."

But her thoughts grew more confused, or came helter-skelter, presenting disordered images, – in which the forest, flight and pursuit, Azya, the little knight, Eva, and the last event were mingled together half in a dream, half in clear vision. All this was rushing on somewhere as waves rush driven by the wind; and she, Basia, runs with them, without fear, without joy, as if she were travelling by contract. Azya, as it were, was pursuing her, but at the same time was talking to her, and anxious about the horse; Pan Zagloba was angry because supper would get cold; Michael was showing the road; and Eva was coming behind in the sleigh, eating dates.

Then those persons became more and more effaced, as if a foggy curtain or darkness had begun to conceal them, and they vanished by degrees; there remained only a certain strange darkness, which, though the eye did not pierce it, seemed still to be empty, and to extend an immeasurable distance. This darkness penetrated every place, penetrated Basia's head, and quenched in it all visions, all thoughts, as a blast of wind quenches torches at night in the open air.

Basia fell asleep; but fortunately for her, before the cold could stiffen the blood in her veins, an unusual noise roused her. The horses started on a sudden; evidently something uncommon was happening in the forest.

Basia, regaining consciousness in one moment, grasped Azya's musket, and bending on the horse, with collected attention and distended nostrils, began to listen. Hers was a nature of such kind that every peril roused wariness at the first twinkle of an eye, daring and readiness for defence.

The noise which roused her was the grunting of wild pigs. Whether beasts were stealing up to the young pigs, or the old boars were going to fight, it is enough that the whole forest resounded immediately. That uproar took place beyond doubt at a distance; but in the stillness of night, and the general drowsiness, it seemed so near that Basia heard not only grunting and squeals, but the loud whistle of nostrils breathing heavily. Suddenly a breaking and tramp, the crash of broken twigs, and a whole herd, though invisible to Basia, rushed past in the neighborhood, and sank in the depth of the forest.

But in that incorrigible Basia, notwithstanding her terrible position, the feeling of a hunter was roused in a twinkle, and she was sorry that she had not seen the herd rushing by.

"One would like to see a little," said she, in her mind; "but no matter! Riding in this way through forests, surely I shall see something yet."

And only after that thought did she push on, remembering that it was better to see nothing and flee with all speed.

It was impossible to halt longer, because the cold seized her more acutely, and the movement of the horse warmed her a good deal, while wearying her comparatively little. But the horses, having snatched merely some moss and frozen grass, moved very reluctantly, and with drooping heads. The hoar-frost in time of halting had covered their sides, and it seemed that they barely dragged their legs forward. They had gone, moreover, since the afternoon rest almost without drawing breath.

When she had crossed the plain, with her eyes fixed on the Great Bear in the heavens, Basia disappeared in the forest, which was not very dense, but in a hilly region intersected with narrow ravines. It became darker too; not only because of the shade cast by spreading trees, but also because a fog rose from the earth and hid the stars. She was forced to go at random. The ravines alone gave some indication that she was taking the right course, for she knew that they all extended from the east toward the Dniester, and that by crossing new ones, she was going continually toward the north. But in spite of this indication, she thought, "I am ever in danger of approaching the Dniester too nearly, or of going too far from it. To do either is perilous; in the first case, I should make an enormous journey; in the second, I might come out at Yampol, and fall into the hands of my enemies." Whether she was yet before Yampol, or just on the heights above it, or had left that place behind, of this she had not the faintest idea.

"There is more chance to know when I pass Mohiloff," said she; "for it lies in a great ravine, which extends far; perhaps I shall recognize it."

Then she looked at the sky and thought: "God grant me only to go beyond Mohiloff; for there Michael's dominion begins; there nothing will frighten me."

Now the night became darker. Fortunately snow was lying in the forest, and on the white ground she could distinguish the dark trunks of trees, see the lower limbs and avoid them. But Basia had to ride more slowly; therefore that terror of unclean powers fell on her soul again, – that terror which in the beginning of the night had chilled her blood as if with ice.

"But if I see gleaming eyes low down," said she to her frightened soul, "that's nothing! it will be a wolf; but if at the height of a man – " At that moment, she cried aloud, "In the name of the Father, Son – "

Was that, perhaps, a wild-cat sitting on a limb? It is sufficient that Basia saw clearly a pair of gleaming eyes, at the height of a man.

From fear, her eyes were covered with a mist; but when she looked again there was nothing to be seen, and nothing heard beyond a rustle among the branches, but her heart beat as loudly as if it would burst open her bosom.

And she rode farther; long, long, she rode, sighing for the light of day; but the night stretched out beyond measure. Soon after, a river barred her road again. Basia was already far enough beyond Yampol, on the bank of the Rosava; but without knowledge of where she was, she thought merely that if she continued to push forward to the north, she would soon meet a new river. She thought too that the night must be near its end; for the cold increased sensibly, the fog fell away, and stars appeared again, but dimmer, beaming with uncertain light.

At length darkness began to pale. Trunks of trees, branches, twigs, grew more visible. Perfect silence reigned in the forest, – the dawn had come.

After a certain time Basia could distinguish the color of the horses. At last in the east, among the branches of the trees, a bright streak appeared, – the day was there, a clear day.

Basia felt weariness immeasurable. Her mouth opened in continual yawning, and her eyes closed soon after; she slept soundly but a short time, for a branch, against which her head came, roused her. Happily the horses were going very slowly, nipping moss by the way; hence the blow was so slight that it caused her no harm. The sun had risen, and was pale; its beautiful rays broke through leafless branches. At sight of this, consolation entered Basia's heart; she had left between her and pursuit so many steppes, mountains, ravines, and a whole night.

"If those from Yampol, or Mohiloff, do not seize me, others will not come up," said she to herself.

She reckoned on this too, – that in the beginning of her flight she had gone by a rocky road, therefore hoofs could leave no traces. But doubt began to seize her again. The Lithuanian Tartars will find tracks even on stones, and will pursue stubbornly, unless their horses fall dead; this last supposition was most likely. It was sufficient for Basia to look at her own beasts; their sides had fallen in, their heads were drooping, their eyes dim. While moving along, they dropped their heads to the ground time after time, to seize moss, or nip in passing red leaves withering here and there on the low oak bushes. It must be too that fever was tormenting Basia, for at all crossings she drank eagerly.

Nevertheless, when she came out on an open plain between two forests, she urged the wearied horses forward at a gallop, and went at that pace to the next forest.

After she had passed that forest she came to a second plain, still wider and more broken; behind hills at a distance of a mile or more smoke was rising, as straight as a pine-tree, toward the sky. That was the first inhabited place that Basia had met; for that country, excepting the river-bank itself, was a desert, or rather had been turned into a desert, not only in consequence of Tartar attacks, but by reason of continuous Polish-Cossack wars. After the last campaign of Pan Charnetski, to whom Busha fell a victim, the small towns came to be wretched settlements, the villages were overgrown with young forests; but after Charnetski, there were so many expeditions, so many battles, so many slaughters, down to the most recent times, in which the great Sobieski had wrested those regions from the enemy. Life had begun to increase; but that one tract through which Basia was fleeing was specially empty, – only robbers had taken refuge there, but even they had been well-nigh exterminated by the commands at Rashkoff, Yampol, and Hreptyoff.