With Fire And Sword Part 39

Bogun made no answer. Half an hour later two hundred Cossacks were in marching order. Bogun rode to the head of them, and with him Zagloba.

They moved on. The peasants standing here and there on the square looked at them from under their brows, and whispered, discussing about where they were going, whether they would return soon or would not return.

Bogun rode on in silence, shut up in himself, mysterious and gloomy as night. The Cossacks asked not whither he was leading them. They were ready to go with him even to the end of the earth.

After crossing the Dnieper, they appeared on the highway to Lubni. The horses went at a trot, raising clouds of dust; but as the day was hot and dry, they were soon covered with foam. They slackened their pace then, and stretched out in a straggling band along the road. Bogun pushed ahead. Zagloba came up abreast of him, wishing to begin conversation.

The face of the young leader was calmer, but mortal grief was clearly depicted on it. It seemed as if the distance in which his glance was lost toward the north beyond the Kagamlik, the speed of the horse, and the breeze of the steppe were quieting the storm within him which was roused by the reading of the letters brought by Jendzian.

"The heat flies down from heaven," said Zagloba. "It is feverish even in a linen coat, for there is no breeze what ever. Bogun! look here, Bogun!"

The leader gazed with his deep, dark eyes as if roused from sleep.

"Be careful, my son," said Zagloba, "that you are not devoured by melancholy, which when it leaves the liver, its proper seat, strikes the head and may soon destroy a man's reason. I did not know that you were such a hero of romance. It must be that you were born in May, which is the month of Venus, in which there is so much sweetness in the air that even one shaving begins to feel an affection for another; therefore men who are born in that month have greater curiosity in their bones for women than other men. But he has the advantage who succeeds in curbing himself; therefore I advise you to let revenge alone. You may justly cherish hatred against the Kurtsevichi; but is she the only girl in the world?"

Bogun, as if in answer not to Zagloba but to his own grief, said in a voice more like that of revery than conversation,--

"She is the one cuckoo, the only one on earth!"

"Even if that were true, if she calls for another, she is nothing to you. It is rightly said that the heart is a volunteer; under whatever banner it wants to serve, under that it serves. Remember too that the girl is of high blood, for the Kurtsevichi I hear are of princely family. Those are lofty thresholds."

"To the devil with your thresholds, families, and parchments!" Here Bogun struck with all his force on the hilt of his sword. "This is my family, this is my right and parchment, this is my matchmaker and best man! Oh, traitors! oh, cursed blood of the enemy! A Cossack was good enough for you to be a friend and a brother with whom to go to the Crimea, get Turkish wealth, divide spoils. Oh! you fondled him and called him a son, betrothed the maiden to him. Now what? A n.o.ble came, a petted Pole. You deserted the Cossack, the son, the friend,--plucked out his heart. She is for another; and do you gnaw the earth, Cossack, if you like!"

The voice of the leader trembled; he ground his teeth, and struck his broad breast till an echo came from it as from an underground cave.

Silence followed. Bogun breathed heavily. Pain and anger rent in succession the wild soul of the Cossack, which knew no restraint.

Zagloba waited till he should become wearied and quiet.

"What do you wish to do, unhappy hero,--how will you act?"

"Like a Cossack,--in Cossack fashion."

"Oh, I see there is something ahead! But no more of this! One thing I will tell you, that the place is within Vishnyevetski's rule and Lubni is not distant. Pan Skshetuski wrote to the princess to take refuge there with the maiden,--which means that they are under the prince's protection; and the prince is a fierce lion--"

"The Khan is a lion, and I rushed up to his throat and held the light to his eyes."

"What, you crazy brain! do you wish to declare war against the prince?"

"Hmelnitski has rushed on the hetmans. What do I care for your prince?"

Pan Zagloba became still more alarmed. "Shu! to the devil with this!

This smells simply of rebellion. Vis armata, raptus puellae, and rebellion,--this comes to the executioner, the rope, and the gallows. A splendid six-in-hand, you may go high in it, if not far. The Kurtsevichi will defend themselves."

"What of that? Either I must perish, or they. I would have given my life for the Kurtsevichi, since I held them as brothers, and the old princess as a mother. Into her eyes I looked as a dog looks! And when the Tartars caught Va.s.sily, who went to the Crimea and rescued him? I!

I loved them and served them as a slave, for I thought that I was earning the maiden. And for this they sold me like a slave to an evil fate and misfortune. They drove me away; but I will go now, and first I will bow down to them in return for the bread and salt that I have eaten in their house, and I will pay them in Cossack fashion. I will go, for I know my road."

"And where will you go, when you begin with the prince,--to the camp of Hmelnitski?"

"If they had given me the girl, I should have been your Polish brother, your friend, your sabre, your sworn soul, your dog. I should have taken my Cossacks, called others together in the Ukraine, then moved against Hmelnitski, and my own brothers, the Zaporojians, and torn them with hoofs. Did I wish reward for this? No! I should have taken the girl and gone beyond the Dnieper, to the steppes of G.o.d, to the wild meadows, to the quiet waters. That would have been enough for me; but now--"

"Now you have become enraged."

Bogun made no answer, struck his horse with the nogaika, and rushed on.

But Zagloba began to think of the trouble into which he had got himself. There was no doubt that Bogun intended to attack the Kurtsevichi, to avenge the injustice done him, and carry off the girl by force. Zagloba would have kept him company, even in an undertaking like this. In the Ukraine such affairs happened frequently, and sometimes they went unpunished. True, when the offender was not a n.o.ble, such a deed became complicated, more dangerous; but the enforcement of justice on a Cossack was difficult, for where was he to be found and seized? After the deed he escaped to the wild steppe, beyond the reach of human hand; and how many could see him? When war broke out, and Tartars invaded the country, the offender appeared again, for at such times laws were asleep. In this way Bogun, too, might save himself from responsibility. Besides, Zagloba had no need of giving him active a.s.sistance, and taking on himself half the fault. He would not have done this in any case; for though Bogun was his friend, still it did not beseem Zagloba, a n.o.ble, to engage with a Cossack against a n.o.ble, especially as he was acquainted with Skshetuski, and had drunk with him. Zagloba was a disturber of no common order, but his turbulence had a certain limit. To frolic in the public houses of Chigirin, with Bogun and other Cossack elders, especially at their expense,--but it was well too, in view of Cossack troubles, to have such people as friends. Zagloba, though he had got a scratch here and there, was very careful of his own skin; therefore he saw at once that through this friendship he had got into a desperate muddle. For it was clear that if Bogun should carry off the maiden, the betrothed of Vishnyevetski's lieutenant and favorite, he would come into collision with the prince; then nothing would remain for him but to take refuge with Hmelnitski and join the rebellion. To this Zagloba mentally opposed his positive veto. To join the rebellion for the beautiful eyes of Bogun was altogether beyond his intention, and besides he feared Yeremi as he did fire.

"Oh, misery!" muttered he to himself; "I have caught the devil by the tail, and this time he will catch me by the head and twist my neck. May lightning strike this Bogun, with his girl face and his Tartar hand!

I've gone to a wedding, indeed, a regular dog-fight, as G.o.d is dear to me! May lightning strike all the Kurtsevichi and all the women! What have I to do with them? They are not necessary to me. No matter who has the grist, they will grind it on me. And for what? Do I want to marry?

Let the evil one marry, it is all the same to me; what business have I in this affair? If I go with Bogun, then Vishnyevetski will flay me; if I leave Bogun, the peasants will kill me, or he will do it without waiting for them. The worst of all is to be intimate with a bear. I am in a nice plight. I should rather be the horse on which I am sitting, than Zagloba. I've come out on Cossack folly. I've hung to a water-burner; justly, therefore, will they flay me on both sides."

While occupied with these thoughts, Zagloba sweated terribly, and fell into worse humor. The heat was great; the horse travelled with difficulty, for he had not been on the road for a long time, and Pan Zagloba was a heavy man. Merciful G.o.d! what would he have given then to be sitting in the shade at an inn, over a gla.s.s of cool beer, not to weary himself in the heat and rush on over the scorching steppe!

Though Bogun was in a hurry, he slackened his pace, for the heat was terrible. They fed the horses a little. During that time Bogun spoke to the essauls,--apparently gave them orders, for up to that time they did not know where they were going. The last word of the command reached Zagloba's ear,--

"Wait the pistol-shot!"

"Very well, father."

Bogun turned suddenly to Zagloba: "You will go in advance with me."

"I?" asked Zagloba, in evident bad humor. "I love you so much that I have already sweated out one half of my soul; why should I not sweat out the other half? We are like a coat and its lining, and I hope the devil will take us together,--which is all the same to me, for I think it cannot be hotter in h.e.l.l than here."

"Forward!"

"At breakneck speed."

They moved on, and soon after them the Cossacks; but the latter rode slowly, so that in a short time they were a good distance in the rear, and finally were lost to sight.

Bogun and Zagloba rode side by side in silence, both in deep thought.

Zagloba pulled his mustache, and it was evident that he was working vigorously with his brain; he was planning, perhaps, how to extricate himself from the whole affair. At times he muttered something to himself half audibly; then again he looked at Bogun, on whose face was depicted now unrestrained anger, now grief.

"It is a wonder," thought Zagloba to himself, "that though such a beauty, he was not able to bring the girl to his side. He is a Cossack, it is true, but a famous knight and a lieutenant-colonel, who sooner or later will become a n.o.ble, unless he joins the rebellion, which depends entirely on himself. Pan Skshetuski is a respectable cavalier and good-looking but he cannot compare in appearance with the Cossack, who is as beautiful as a picture. Ha! they will grapple when they meet, for both are champions of no common kind."

"Bogun, do you know Pan Skshetuski well?" asked Zagloba, suddenly.

"No," answered the Cossack, briefly.

"You will have difficult work with him. I saw him when he opened the door for himself with Chaplinski. He is a Goliath in drinking as well as fighting."

Bogun made no reply, and again they were both buried in their own thoughts and anxieties; following which, Zagloba repeated from time to time: "So there is no help!"

Some hours pa.s.sed. The sun had travelled far to the west, toward Chigirin; from the east a cool breeze sprang up. Zagloba took off his lynx-skin cap, raised his hand to his sweat-moistened head, and repeated again: "So there is no help!"

Bogun roused himself, as if from sleep. "What do you say?" he inquired.

"I say that it will be dark directly. Is it far yet?"

"No."

In an hour it had grown dark in earnest, but they had already reached a woody ravine. At the end of the ravine a light was gleaming.