Pan Michael Part 34

"What has happened to this forest?" asked Basia of Zagloba.

"In places there may be old fellings made by the former inhabitants against the horde, or by the ruffians against our troops; again in places the Moldavian whirlwinds rush through the woods; in these whirlwinds, as old people say, vampires, or real devils, fight battles."

"But has your grace ever seen devils fighting?"

"As to seeing, I have not seen them; but I have heard how devils cry to each other for amus.e.m.e.nt, 'U-ha! U-ha!' Ask Michael; he has heard them."

Basia, though daring, feared evil spirits somewhat, therefore she began to make the sign of the cross at once. "A terrible place!" said she.

And really in some ravines it was terrible; for it was not only dark, but forbidding. The wind was not blowing; the leaves and branches of trees made no rustle; there was heard only the tramp and snorting of horses, the squeak of wagons, and cries uttered by drivers in the most dangerous places. At times too, the Tartars or dragoons began to sing; but the desert itself was not enlivened with one sound of man or beast.

If the ravines made a gloomy impression, the upper country, even where the pine woods extended, was unfolded joyously before the eyes of the caravan. The weather was autumnal, calm. The sun moved along the plain of heaven, unspotted by a cloud, pouring bountiful rays on the rocks, on the fields and the forest. In that gleam the pine-trees seemed ruddy and golden; and the spider-webs attached to the branches of trees, to the reeds and the gra.s.s, shone brightly, as if they were woven from sunbeams. October had come to the middle of its days; therefore, many birds, especially those sensitive to cold, had begun to pa.s.s from the Commonwealth to the Black Sea; in the heavens were to be seen rows of storks flying with piercing cries, geese, and flocks of teal.

Here and there floated high in the blue, on outspread wings, eagles, terrible to inhabitants of the air; here and there falcons, eager for prey, were describing circles slowly. But there were not lacking, especially in the open fields, those birds also which keep to the earth, and hide gladly in tall gra.s.s. Every little while flocks of rust-colored partridges flew noisily from under the steeds of the Tartars; a number of times also Basia saw, though from a distance, bustards standing on watch, at sight of which her cheeks flushed, and her eyes began to glitter.

"I will go coursing with Michael!" cried she, clapping her hands.

"If your husband were a sitter at home," said Zagloba, "his beard would be gray soon from such a wife; but I knew to whom I gave you. Another woman would be thankful at least, wouldn't she?"

Basia kissed Zagloba straightway on both cheeks, so that he was moved and said, "Loving hearts are as dear to a man in old age as a warm place behind the stove." Then he was thoughtful for a while and added, "It is a wonder how I have loved the fair s.e.x all my life; and if I had to say why, I know not myself, for often they are bad and deceitful and giddy. But because they are as helpless as children, if an injustice strikes one of them, a man's heart pipes from pity. Embrace me again, or not!"

Basia would have been glad to embrace the whole world; therefore she satisfied Zagloba's wish at once, and they drove on in excellent humor.

They went slowly, for the oxen, going behind, could not travel faster, and it was dangerous to leave them in the midst of those forests with a small number of men. As they drew near Ushytsa, the country became more uneven, the desert more lonely, and the ravines deeper. Every little while something was injured in the wagons, and sometimes the horses were stubborn; considerable delays took place through this cause. The old road, which led once to Mohiloff, was grown over with forests during twenty years, so that traces of it could barely be seen here and there; consequently they had to keep to the trails beaten by earlier and later pa.s.sages of troops, hence frequently misleading, and also very difficult. The journey did not pa.s.s either without accident.

On the slope of a ravine the horse stumbled under Mellehovich, riding at the head of the Tartars, and fell to the stony bottom, not without injury to the rider, who cut the crown of his head so severely that consciousness left him for a time. Basia and Zagloba mounted led palfreys; and Basia gave command to put the Tartar in the carriage and drive carefully. Afterward she stopped the march at every spring, and with her own hands bound his head with cloths wet with cold spring-water. He lay for a time with closed eyes, but opened them at last; and when Basia bent over him and asked how he felt, instead of an answer he seized her hand and pressed it to his white lips. Only after a pause, as if collecting his thoughts and presence of mind, did he say in Russian,--

"Oh, I am well, as I have not been for a long time."

The whole day pa.s.sed in a march of this kind. The sun, growing red at last and seeming immense, was descending on the Moldavian side; the Dnieper was gleaming like a fiery ribbon, and from the east, from the Wilderness, darkness was moving on slowly.

Hreptyoff was not far away, but it was necessary to give rest to the horses, therefore they stopped for a considerable halt. This and that dragoon began to chant prayers; the Tartars dismounted, spread sheep-skins on the ground, and fell to praying on their knees, with faces turned eastward. At times "Allah! Allah!" sounded through all the ranks; then again they were quiet; holding their palms turned upward near their faces, they continued in attentive prayer, repeating only from time to time drowsily and as if with a sigh, "Lohichmen ah lohichmen!" The rays of the sun fell on them redder and redder; a breeze came from the west, and with it a great rustling in the trees, as if they wished to honor before night Him who brings out on the dark heavens thousands of glittering stars. Basia looked with great curiosity at the praying of the Tartars; but at the thought that so many good men, after lives full of toil, would go straightway after death to h.e.l.l's fire, her heart was oppressed, especially since they, though they met people daily who professed the true faith, remained of their own will in hardness of heart.

Zagloba, more accustomed to those things, only shrugged his shoulders at the pious considerations of Basia, and said, "These sons of goats are not admitted to heaven, lest they might take with them vile insects."

Then, with the a.s.sistance of his attendant, he put on a coat lined with hanging threads,--an excellent defence against evening cold,--and gave command to move on; but barely had the march begun when on the opposite heights five hors.e.m.e.n appeared. The Tartars opened ranks at once.

"Michael!" cried Basia, seeing the man riding in front.

It was indeed Volodyovski, who had come out with a few hors.e.m.e.n to meet his wife. Springing forward, they greeted each other with great joy, and then began to tell what had happened to each.

Basia related how the journey had pa.s.sed, and how Pan Mellehovich had "sprained his reason[17] against a stone." The little knight made a report of his activity in Hreptyoff, in which, as he stated, everything was ready and waiting to receive her, for five hundred axes had been working for three weeks on buildings. During this conversation Pan Michael bent from the saddle every little while, and seized his young wife in his arms; she, it was clear, was not very angry at that, for she rode at his side there so closely that the horses were nearly rubbing against each other.

The end of the journey was not distant; meanwhile a beautiful night came down, illuminated by a great golden moon. But the moon grew paler as it rose from the steppes to the sky, and at last its s.h.i.+ning was darkened by a conflagration which blazed up brightly in front of the caravan.

"What is that?" inquired Basia.

"You will see," said Volodyovski, "as soon as you have pa.s.sed that forest which divides us from Hreptyoff."

"Is that Hreptyoff already?"

"You would see it as a thing on your palm, but the trees hide it."

They rode into a small forest; but they had not ridden halfway through it when a swarm of lights appeared on the other edge like a swarm of fireflies, or glittering stars. Those stars began to approach with amazing rapidity; and suddenly the whole forest was quivering with shouts,--

"Vivat the lady! Vivat her great mightiness! vivat our commandress!

vivat, vivat!"

These were soldiers who had hastened to greet Basia. Hundreds of them mingled in one moment with the Tartars. Each held on a long pole a burning taper, fixed in a split at the end of the pole. Some had iron candlesticks on pikes, from which burning rosin was falling in the form of long fiery tears.

Basia was surrounded quickly with throngs of mustached faces, threatening, somewhat wild, but radiant with joy. The greater number of them had never seen Basia in their lives; many expected to meet an imposing person; hence their delight was all the greater at sight of that lady, almost a child in appearance, who was riding on a white palfrey and bent in thanks to every side her wonderful, rosy face, small and joyous, but at the same time greatly excited by the unlooked-for reception.

"I thank you, gentlemen," said she; "I know that this is not for me."

But her silvery voice was lost in the _vivats_, and the forest was trembling from shouts.

The officers from the squadron of the starosta of Podolia and the chamberlain of Premysl, Motovidlo's Cossacks and the Tartars, mingled together. Each wished to see the lady commandress, to approach her; some of the most urgent kissed the edge of her skirt or her foot in the stirrup. For these half-wild partisans, inured to raids and man-hunting, to bloodshed and slaughter, that was a sight so unusual, so new, that in presence of it their hard hearts were moved, and some kind of feeling, new and unknown to them, was roused in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

They came to meet her out of love for Pan Michael, wis.h.i.+ng to give him pleasure, and perhaps to flatter him; and behold! sudden tenderness seizes them. That smiling, sweet, and innocent face, with gleaming eyes and distended nostrils, became dear to them in one moment. "That is our child!" cried old Cossacks, real wolves of the steppe. "A cherub, Pan Commander." "She is a morning dawn! a dear flower!" shouted the officers. "We will fall, one after another, for her!" And the Tartars, clicking with their tongues, put their palms to their broad b.r.e.a.s.t.s and cried, "Allah! Allah!" Volodyovski was greatly touched, but glad; he put his hands on his hips and was proud of his Basia.

Shouts were heard continually. At last the caravan came out of the forest, and before the eyes of the newly arrived appeared firm wooden buildings, erected in a circle on high ground. That was the stanitsa of Hreptyoff, as clearly seen then as in daylight, for inside the stockade enormous piles were burning, on which whole logs had been thrown. The square was full of fires, but smaller, so as not to burn up the place.

The soldiers quenched their torches; then each drew from his shoulder, one a musket, another a gun, a third a pistol, and thundered in greeting to the lady. Musicians came too in front of the stockade: the starosta's band with crooked horns, the Cossacks with trumpets, drums, and various stringed instruments, and at last the Tartars, pre-eminent for squeaking pipes. The barking of the garrison dogs and the bellowing of terrified cattle added still to the uproar.

The convoy remained now in the rear, and in front rode Basia, having on one side her husband, and on the other Zagloba. Over the gate, beautifully ornamented with birch boughs, stood black, on membranes of bladder smeared with tallow and lighted from the inside, the inscription:--

"May Cupid give you many happy moments!

Dear guests, _crescite, multiplicamini!_"

"Vivant, floreant!" cried the soldiers, when the little knight and Basia halted to read the inscription.

"For G.o.d's sake!" said Zagloba, "I'm a guest too; but if that wish for multiplication concerns me, may the crows pluck me if I know what to do with it."

But Pan Zagloba found a special transparency intended for himself, and with no small pleasure he read on it,--

"Long live our great mighty Onufry Zagloba, The highest ornament of the whole knighthood!"

Pan Michael was very joyful; the officers were invited to sup with him; and for the soldiers he gave command to roll out one and another keg of spirits. A number of bullocks fell also; these the men began at once to roast at the fires. They sufficed for all abundantly. Long into the night the stanitsa was thundering with shouts and musket-shots, so that fear seized the bands of robbers hidden in the ravines of Ushytsa.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Pan Michael was not idle in his stanitsa, and his men lived in perpetual toil. One hundred, sometimes a smaller number, remained as a garrison in Hreptyoff; the rest were on expeditions continually. The more considerable detachments were sent to clear out the ravines of Ushytsa; and they lived, as it were, in endless warfare, for bands of robbers, frequently very numerous, offered powerful resistance, and more than once it was needful to fight with them regular battles. Such expeditions lasted days, and at times tens of days. Pan Michael sent smaller parties as far as Bratslav for news of the horde and Doroshenko. The task of these parties was to bring in informants, and therefore to capture them on the steppes. Some went down the Dniester to Mohiloff and Yampol, to maintain connection with commandants in those places; some watched on the Moldavian side; some built bridges and repaired the old road.

The country in which such a considerable activity reigned became pacified gradually; those of the inhabitants who were more peaceful, and less enamoured of robbery, returned by degrees to their deserted habitations, at first stealthily, then with more confidence. A few Jewish handicraftsmen came up to Hreptyoff itself; sometimes a more considerable Armenian merchant looked in; shopkeepers visited the place more frequently: Volodyovski had therefore a not barren hope that if G.o.d and the hetman would permit him to remain a longer time in command, that country which had grown wild would a.s.sume another aspect. That work was merely the beginning; there was a world of things yet to be done: the roads were still dangerous; the demoralized people entered into friends.h.i.+p more readily with robbers than with troops, and for any cause hid themselves again in the rocky gorges; the fords of the Dnieper were often pa.s.sed stealthily by bands made up of Wallachians, Cossacks, Hungarians, Tartars, and G.o.d knows what people. These sent raids through the country, attacking in Tartar fas.h.i.+on villages and towns, gathering up everything which let itself be gathered; for a time yet it was impossible to drop a sabre from the hand in those regions, or to hang a musket on a nail; still a beginning was made, and the future promised to be favorable.