Pan Michael Part 73

"To whom?"

"The murza himself does not know certainly. A command came from the Padishah to keep no women in camp. All sold their women in the bazaar; the murza sold his."

The explanation was finished, and at the fire silence set in; but for some time a sultry afternoon wind shook the limbs of the trees, which sounded more and more deeply. The air became stifling; on the edge of the horizon, black clouds appeared, dark in the centre, and s.h.i.+ning with a copper-color on the edges.

Pan Adam walked away from the fire, and moved like one demented, without giving an account to himself of where he was going. At last he dropped with his face to the ground, and began to tear the earth with his nails, then to gnaw his own hands, and then to gasp as if dying. A convulsion twisted his gigantic body, and he lay thus for hours. The dragoons looked at him from a distance; but even Lusnia dared not approach him.

Concluding that the commandant would not be angry at him for not sparing the Tartars, the terrible sergeant, impelled by pure inborn cruelty, stuffed their mouths with gra.s.s, so as to avoid noise, and slaughtered them like bullocks. He spared Eliashevich alone, supposing that he would be needed to guide them. When he had finished this work, he dragged away from the fire the bodies, still quivering, and put them in a row; he went then to look at the commandant.

"Even if he has gone mad," muttered Lusnia, "we must get that one."

Midday had pa.s.sed, the afternoon hours as well, and the day was inclining toward evening. But those clouds, small at first, occupied now almost the whole heavens, and were growing ever thicker and darker without losing that copper-colored gleam along the edges. Their gigantic rolls turned heavily, like millstones on their own axes; then they fell on one another, crowded one another, and pus.h.i.+ng one another from the height, rolled in a dense ma.s.s lower and lower toward the earth. The wind struck at times, like a bird of prey with its wings, bent the cornel-trees and the dogwood to the earth, tore away a cloud of leaves, and bore it apart with rage; at times it stopped as if it had fallen into the ground. During such intervals of silence there was heard in the gathering clouds a certain ominous rattling, wheezing, rumbling; you would have said that legions of thunders were gathering within them and ranging for battle, grumbling in deep voices while rousing rage and fury in themselves, before they would burst out and strike madly on the terrified earth.

"A storm, a storm is coming!" whispered the dragoons to one another.

The storm was coming. The air grew darker each instant.

Then on the east, from the side of the Dniester, thunder rose and rolled with an awful outbreak along the heavens, till it went far away, beyond the Pruth; there it was silent for a moment, but springing up afresh, rushed toward the steppes of Budjyak, and rolled along the whole horizon.

First, great drops of rain fell on the parched gra.s.s. At that moment Pan Adam stood before the dragoons.

"To horse!" cried he, with a mighty voice.

And at the expiration of as much time as is needed to say a hurried "Our Father," he was moving at the head of a hundred and fifty hors.e.m.e.n. When he had ridden out of the woods, he joined, near the herd of horses, the other half of his men, who had been standing guard at the field-side, to prevent any herdsmen from escaping by stealth to the camp. The dragoons rushed around the herd in the twinkle of an eye, and giving out wild shouts, peculiar to Tartars, moved on, urging before them the panic-stricken horses.

The sergeant held Eliashevich on a lariat, and shouted in his ear, trying to outsound the roar of the thunder,--

"Lead us on dog blood, and straight, or a knife in thy throat!"

Now the clouds rolled so low that they almost touched the earth. On a sudden they burst, like an explosion in a furnace, and a raging hurricane was let loose; soon a blinding light rent the darkness, a thunder-clap came, and after it a second, a third; the smell of sulphur spread in the air, and again there was darkness. Terror seized the herd of horses. The beasts, driven from behind by the wild shouts of the dragoons, ran with distended nostrils and flowing mane, scarcely touching the earth in their onrush; the thunder did not cease for a moment; the wind roared, and the horses raced on madly in that wind, in that darkness, amid explosions in which the earth seemed to be breaking. Driven by the tempest and by vengeance, they were like a terrible company of vampires or evil spirits in that wild steppe.

s.p.a.ce fled before them. No guide was needed, for the herd ran straight to the camp of the Tartars, which was nearer and nearer. But before they had reached it, the storm was unchained, as if the sky and the earth had gone mad. The whole horizon blazed with living fire, by the gleam of which were seen the tents standing on the steppe; the world was quivering from the roar of thunders; it seemed that the clouds might burst any moment and tumble to the earth. In fact, their sluices were opened, and floods of rain began to deluge the steppe. The downfall was so dense that a few paces distant nothing could be seen, and from the earth, inflamed by the heat of the sun, a thick mist was soon rising.

Yet a little while, and herd and dragoons will be in the camp.

But right before the tents the herd split, and ran to both sides in wild panic; three hundred b.r.e.a.s.t.s gave out a fearful shriek; three hundred sabres glittered in the flame of the lightning, and the dragoons fell on the tents.

Before the outburst of the torrent, the Tartars saw in the lightning-flashes the on-coming herd; but none of them knew what terrible herdsmen were driving. Astonishment and alarm seized them; they wondered why the herd should rush straight at the tents; then they began to shout to frighten them away. Azya himself pushed aside the canvas door, and in spite of the rain, went out with anger on his threatening face. But that instant the herd split in two, and, amid torrents of rain and in the fog, certain fierce forms looked black and many times greater in number than the horse-herds; then the terrible cry, "Slay, kill!" was heard.

There was no time for anything, not even to guess what had happened, not even to be frightened. The hurricane of men, more dreadful and furious by far than the tempest, whirled on to the camp. Before Tugai Bey's son could retreat one step toward his tent, some power more than human, as you would have said, raised him from the earth.

Suddenly he felt that a dreadful embrace was squeezing him, that from its pressure his bones were bending and his ribs breaking; soon he saw, as if in mist, a face rather than which he would have seen Satan's, and fainted.

By that time the battle had begun, or rather the ghastly slaughter. The storm, the darkness, the unknown number of the a.s.sailants, the suddenness of the attack, and the scattering of the horses were the cause that the Tartars scarcely defended themselves. The madness of terror simply took possession of them. No one knew whither to escape, where to hide himself. Many had no weapons at hand; the attack found many asleep. Therefore, stunned, bewildered, and terrified, they gathered into dense groups, crowding, overturning, and trampling one another. The b.r.e.a.s.t.s of horses pushed them down, threw them to the ground; sabres cut them, hoofs crushed them. A storm does not so break, destroy, and lay waste a young forest, wolves do not eat into a flock of bewildered sheep, as the dragoons trampled and cut down those Tartars. On the one hand, bewilderment, on the other, rage and vengeance, completed the measure of their misfortune. Torrents of blood were mingled with the rain. It seemed to the Tartars that the sky was falling on them, that the earth was opening under their feet. The flash of lightning, the roar of thunder, the noise of rain, the darkness, the terror of the storm, answered to the dreadful outcries of the slaughtered. The horses of the dragoons, seized also with fear, rushed, as if maddened, into the throng, breaking it and stretching the men on the ground. At length the smaller groups began to flee, but they had lost knowledge of the place to such a degree that they fled around on the scene of struggle, instead of fleeing straight forward; and frequently they knocked against one another, like two opposing waves, struck one another, overturned one another, and went under the sword.

At last the dragoons scattered the remnant of them completely, and slew them in the flight, taking no prisoners, and pursuing without mercy till the trumpets called them back from pursuit.

Never had an attack been more unexpected, and never a defeat more terrible. Three hundred men had scattered to the four winds of the world nearly two thousand cavalry, surpa.s.sing incomparably in training the ordinary chambuls. The greater part of them were lying flat in red pools of blood and rain. The rest dispersed, hid their heads, thanks to the darkness, and escaped on foot, at random, not certain that they would not run under the knife a second time. The storm and the darkness a.s.sisted the victors, as if the anger of G.o.d were fighting on their side against traitors.

Night had fallen completely when Pan Adam moved out at the head of his dragoons, to return to the boundaries of the Commonwealth. Between the young lieutenant and Lusnia, the sergeant, went a horse from the herd.

On the back of this horse lay, bound with cords, the leader of all the Lithuanian Tartars,--Azya, the son of Tugai Bey, with broken ribs. He was alive, but in a swoon. Both looked at him from time to time as carefully and anxiously as if they were carrying a treasure, and were fearful of losing it.

The storm began to pa.s.s. On the heavens, legions of clouds were still moving, but in intervals between them, stars were beginning to s.h.i.+ne, and to be reflected in lakes of water, formed on the steppe by the dense rain. In the distance, in the direction of the Commonwealth, thunder was still roaring from time to time.

CHAPTER L.

The fugitive Tartars carried news to the Belgrod horde of the disaster.

Couriers from them took the news to the Ordu i Humayun,--that is, to the Sultan's camp,--where it made an uncommon impression.

Pan Adam had no need, it is true, to flee too hurriedly with his booty to the Commonwealth, for not only did no one pursue him at the first moment, but not even for the two succeeding days. The Sultan was so astonished that he knew not what to think. He sent Belgrod and Dobrudja chambuls at once to discover what troops were in the vicinity. They went unwillingly, for with them it was a question of their own skins.

Meanwhile the tidings, given from mouth to mouth, grew to be the account of a considerable overthrow. Men inhabiting the depth of Asia or Africa, who had not gone hitherto with war to Lehistan, and who heard from narratives of the terrible cavalry of the unbelievers, were seized with fright at the thought that they were already in presence of that enemy who did not wait for them within his own boundaries, but sought them in the very dominions of the Padishah; the grand vizir himself, and the "future sun of war," the kaimakan, Kara Mustafa, did not know either what to think of the attack. How that Commonwealth, of whose weakness they had the minutest accounts, could a.s.sume all at once the offensive, no Turkish head could explain. It is enough that henceforth the march seemed less secure, and less like a triumph. At the council of war the Sultan received the vizir and the kaimakan with a terrible countenance.

"You have deceived me," said he. "The Poles cannot be so weak, since they seek us even here. You told me that Sobieski would not defend Kamenyets, and now he is surely in front of us, with his whole army."

The vizir and kaimakan tried to explain to their lord that this might be some detached band of robbers; but in view of the muskets and of straps, in which there were dragoon jackets, they did not believe that themselves. The recent expedition of Sobieski to the Ukraine, daring beyond every measure, but for all that victorious, permitted the supposition that the terrible leader intended to antic.i.p.ate the enemy this time as well as the other.

"He has no troops," said the grand vizir to the kaimakan, while coming out from the council; "but there is a lion in him which knows nothing of fear. If he has collected even a few thousand, and is here, we shall march in blood to Hotin."

"I should like to measure strength with him," said young Kara Mustafa.

"May G.o.d avert from you misfortune!" answered the grand vizir.

By degrees, however, the Belgrod and Dobrudja chambuls convinced themselves that there were not only no large bodies of troops, but no troops at all in the neighborhood. They discovered the trail of a detachment numbering about three hundred horse, which moved hurriedly toward the Dniester. The Tartars, remembering the fate of Azya's men, made no pursuit, out of fear of an ambush. The attack remained as something astonis.h.i.+ng and unexplained; but quiet came back by degrees to the Ordu i Humayun, and the armies of the Padishah began again to advance like an inundation.

Meanwhile, Pan Adam was returning safely with his living booty to Rashkoff. He went hurriedly, but as experienced scouts learned on the second day that there was no pursuit, he advanced, notwithstanding his haste, at a gait not to weary the horses over-much. Azya, fastened with cords to the back of the horse, was always between Pan Adam and Lusnia.

He had two ribs broken, and had become wonderfully weak, for even the wound given him by Basia in the face opened from his struggle with Pan Adam and from riding with head hanging down. The terrible sergeant was careful that he should not die before reaching Rashkoff, and thus baffle revenge. The young Tartar wanted to die. Knowing what awaited him, he determined first of all to kill himself with hunger, and would not take food; but Lusnia opened his set teeth with a knife, and forced into his mouth gorailka and Moldavian wine, in which biscuits, rubbed to dust, had been mixed. At the places of halting, they threw water on his face, lest the wounds of his eye and his nose, on which flies and gnats had settled thickly during the journey, should mortify, and bring premature death to the ill-fated man.

Pan Adam did not speak to him on the road. Once only, at the beginning of the journey, when Azya, at the price of his freedom and life, offered to return Zosia and Eva, did the lieutenant say to him,--

"Thou liest, dog! Both were sold by thee to a merchant of Stambul, who will sell them again in the bazaar."

And straightway they brought Eliashevich, who said in presence of all,--

"It is so, Effendi. You sold her without knowing to whom; and Adurovich sold the bagadyr's[30] sister, though she was with child by him."

After these words, it seemed for a while to Azya that Novoveski would crush him at once in his terrible grasp. Afterwards, when he had lost all hope, he resolved to bring the young giant to kill him in a transport of rage, and in that way spare himself future torment; since Novoveski, unwilling to let his captive out of sight, rode always near him, Azya began to boast beyond measure and shamelessly of all that he had done. He told how he had killed old Novoveski, how he had kept Zosia Boski in the tent, how he gloated over her innocence, how he had torn her body with rods, and kicked her. The sweat rolled off the pale face of Pan Adam in thick drops. He listened; he had not the power, he had not the wish to go away. He listened eagerly, his hands quivered, his body shook convulsively; still he mastered himself, and did not kill.

But Azya, while tormenting his enemy, tormented himself, for his narratives brought to his mind his present misfortune. Not long before, he was commanding men, living in luxury, a murza, a favorite of the young kaimakan; now, lashed to the back of a horse, and eaten alive by flies, he was travelling on to a terrible death. Relief came to him when, from the pain of his wounds, and from suffering, he fainted. This happened with growing frequency, so that Lusnia began to fear that he might not bring him alive. But they travelled night and day, giving only as much rest to the horses as was absolutely needful, and Rashkoff was ever nearer and nearer. Still the horned soul of the Tartar would not leave the afflicted body. But during the last days he was in a continual fever, and at times he fell into an oppressive sleep. More than once in that fever or sleep he dreamed that he was still in Hreptyoff, that he had to go with Volodyovski to a great war; again that he was conducting Basia to Rashkoff; again that he had borne her away, and hidden her in his tent; at times in the fever he saw battles and slaughter, in which, as hetman of the Polish Tartars, he was giving orders from under his bunchuk. But awakening came, and with it consciousness. Opening his eyes, he saw the face of Novoveski, the face of Lusnia, the helmets of the dragoons, who had thrown aside the sheepskin caps of the horseherds; and all that reality was so dreadful that it seemed to him a genuine nightmare. Every movement of the horse tortured him; his wounds burned him increasingly; and again he fainted.

Pierced with pain, he recovered consciousness, to fall into a fever, and with it into a dream, to wake up again.

There were moments in which it seemed to him impossible that he, such a wretched man, could be Azya, the son of Tugai Bey; that his life, which was full of uncommon events, and which seemed to promise a great destiny, was to end with such suddenness, and so terribly.

At times too it came to his head that after torments and death he would go straightway to paradise; but because once he had professed Christianity, and had lived long among Christians, fear seized him at the thought of Christ. Christ would have no pity on him; if the Prophet had been mightier than Christ, he would not have given him into the hands of Pan Adam. Perhaps, however, the Prophet would show pity yet, and take the soul out of him before Pan Adam would kill him with torture.

Meanwhile, Rashkoff was at hand. They entered a country of cliffs, which indicated the vicinity of the Dniester. Azya in the evening fell into a condition half feverish, half conscious, in which illusions were mingled with reality. It seemed to him that they had arrived, that they had stopped, that he heard around him the words "Rashkoff! Rashkoff!"

Next it seemed to him that he heard the noise of axes cutting wood.