Pan Michael: An Historical Novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey

  CHAPTER XXXIX.

  Azya urged his horse up so closely to Basia's pony that his stirrupalmost touched hers. He rode forward a few steps in silence; duringthis time he strove to calm himself finally, and wondered why calmnesscame to him with such effort, since he had Basia in his hands, andthere was no human power which could take her from him. But he did notknow that in his soul, despite every probability, despite everyevidence, there glimmered a certain spark of hope that the woman whomhe desired would answer with a feeling like his own. If that hope wasweak, the desire for its object was so strong that it shook him as afever. The woman would not open her arms, would not cast herself intohis embrace, would not say those words over which he had dreamed wholenights: "Azya, I am thine;" she would not hang with her lips on hislips,--he knew this. But how would she receive his words? What wouldshe say? Would she lose all feeling, like a dove in the claws of a birdof prey, and let him take her, just as the hapless dove yields itselfto the hawk? Would she beg for mercy tearfully, or would she fill thatwilderness with a cry of terror? Would there be something more, orsomething less, of all this? Such questions were storming in the headof the Tartar. But in every case the hour had come to cast asidefeigning, pretences, and show her a truthful, a terrible face. Here washis fear, here his alarm. One moment more, and all would beaccomplished.

  Finally this mental alarm became in the Tartar that which alarm becomesmost frequently in a wild beast,--rage; and he began to rouse himselfwith that rage. "Whatever happens," thought he, "she is mine, she ismine altogether; she will be mine to-morrow, and then will not returnto her husband, but will follow me."

  At this thought wild delight seized him by the hair, and he said all atonce in a voice which seemed strange to himself, "Your grace has notknown me till now."

  "In this fog your voice has so changed," answered Basia, somewhatalarmed, "that it seems to me really as if another were speaking."

  "In Mohiloff there are no troops, in Yampol none, in Rashkoff none. Ialone am lord here,--Krychinski, Adurovich, and those others are myslaves; for I am a prince, I am the son of a ruler. I am their vizir, Iam their highest murza; I am their leader, as Tugai Bey was; I am theirkhan; I alone have authority; all here is in my power."

  "Why do you say this to me?"

  "Your grace has not known me hitherto. Rashkoff is not far away. Iwished to become hetman of the Tartars and serve the Commonwealth; butSobieski would not permit it. I am not to be a Lithuanian Tartar anylonger; I am not to serve under any man's command, but to lead greatchambuls myself, against Doroshenko, or the Commonwealth, as your gracewishes, as your grace commands."

  "How as I command? Azya, what is the matter with you?"

  "This, that here all are my slaves, and I am yours. What is the hetmanto me? I care not whether he has permitted or not. Say a word, yourgrace, and I will put Akkerman at your feet; and the Dobrudja, andthose hordes which have villages there, and those which wander in theWilderness, and those who are everywhere in winter quarters will beyour slaves, as I am your slave. Command, and I will not obey the Khanof the Crimea, I will not obey the Sultan; I will make war on them withthe sword, and aid the Commonwealth. I will form new hordes in theseregions, and be khan over them, and you will be alone over me; to youalone will I bow down, beg for your favor and love."

  When he had said this, he bent in the saddle, and, seizing the woman,half terrified, and, as it were, stunned by his words, he continued tospeak in a hurried, hoarse voice; "Have you not seen that I love onlyyou? Ah, but I have suffered my share! I will take you now! You aremine, and you will be mine! No one will tear you from my hands in thisplace--you are mine, mine, mine!"

  "Jesus, Mary!" cried Basia.

  But he pressed her in his arms as if wishing to smother her. Hurriedbreathing struggled from his lips, his eyes grew misty; at last he drewher out of the stirrups, off the saddle, put her in front of him,pressed her breast to his own, and his bluish lips, opening greedily,like the mouth of a fish, began to seek her mouth.

  She uttered no cry, but began to resist with unexpected strength;between them rose a struggle in which only the panting of their breathswas to be heard. His violent movements and the nearness of his facerestored her presence of mind. An instant of such clear vision came toBasia as comes to the drowning; she felt everything at once with thegreatest vividness. Hence she felt first of all that the earth wasvanishing from under her feet, and a bottomless ravine opening, towhich he was dragging her; she saw his desire, his treason, her owndreadful fate, her weakness and helplessness; she felt alarm, and aghastly pain and sorrow, and at the same time there burst forth in hera flame of immense indignation, rage, and revenge. Such was the courageand spirit of that daughter of a knight, that chosen wife of the mostgallant soldier of the Commonwealth, that in that awful moment shethought first of all, "I will have revenge," then "I will save myself."All the faculties of her mind were strained, as hair is straightenedwith terror on the head; and that clearness of vision as in drowningbecame in her almost miraculous. While struggling her hands began toseek for weapons, and found at last the ivory butt of an Easternpistol; but at the same time she had presence of mind to think of thisalso,--that even if the pistol were loaded, even if she should cock it,before she could bend her hand, before she could point the barrel athis head, he would seize her hand without fail, and take from her thelast means of salvation. Hence she resolved to strike in another way.

  All this lasted one twinkle of an eye. He indeed foresaw the attack,and put out his hand with the speed of a lightning flash; but he didnot succeed in calculating her movement. The hands passed each other,and Basia, with all the despairing strength of her young and vigorousarm, struck him with the ivory butt of the pistol between the eyes.

  The blow was so terrible that Azya was not able even to cry, and hefell backward, drawing her after him in his fall.

  Basia raised herself in a moment, and, springing on her horse, shot offlike a whirlwind in the direction opposite the Dnieper, toward thebroad steppes.

  The curtain of fog closed behind her. The horse, dropping his ears,rushed on at random among the rocks, clefts, ravines, and breaches. Anymoment he might run into some cleft, any moment he might crush himselfand his rider against a rocky corner; but Basia looked at nothing; forher the most terrible danger was Azya and the Tartars. A wonderfulthing it was, that now, when she had freed herself from the hands ofthe robber, and when he was lying apparently dead among the rocks,dread mastered all her feelings. Lying with her face to the mane of thehorse, shooting on in the fog, like a deer chased by wolves, she beganto fear Azya more than when she was in his arms; and she felt terrorand weakness and that which a helpless child feels, which, wanderingwhere it wished, has gone astray, and is alone and deserted. Certainweeping voices rose in her heart, and began, with groaning, withtimidity, with complaint, and with pity, to call for protection:"Michael, save me! Michael, save me!"

  The horse rushed on and on; led by a wonderful instinct, he sprang overbreaches, avoided with quick movement prominent cliff corners, until atlast the stony ground ceased to sound under his feet; evidently he hadcome to one of those open "meadows" which stretched here and thereamong the ravines.

  Sweat covered the horse, his nostrils were rattling loudly, but he ranand ran.

  "Whither can I go?" thought Basia. And that moment she answeredherself: "To Hreptyoff."

  But new alarm pressed her heart at thought of that long road lyingthrough terrible wildernesses. Quickly too she remembered that Azya hadleft detachments of his men in Mohiloff and Yampol. Doubtless thesewere all in the conspiracy; all served Azya, and would seize hersurely, and take her to Rashkoff; she ought, therefore, to ride farinto the steppe, and only then turn northward, thus avoiding thesettlements on the Dniester.

  She ought to do this all the more for the reason that if men were sentto pursue her, beyond doubt they would go near the river; and meanwhileit might be possible to meet some of the Polish commands in the widesteppes, on
their way to the fortresses.

  The speed of the horse decreased gradually. Basia, being an experiencedrider, understood at once that it was necessary to give him time torecover breath, otherwise he would fall; she felt also that without ahorse in those deserts she was lost.

  She restrained, therefore, his speed, and went some time at a walk. Thefog was growing thin, but a cloud of hot steam rose from the poorbeast.

  Basia began to pray.

  Suddenly she heard the neighing of a horse amid the fog a few hundredyards behind.

  Then the hair rose on her head.

  "Mine will fall dead, but so will that one!" said she, aloud; and againshe shot on.

  For some time her horse rushed forward with the speed of a dove pursuedby a falcon, and he ran long, almost to the last of his strength; butthe neighing was heard continually behind in the distance. There was inthat neighing which came out of the fog something at once ofimmeasurable yearning and threatening; still, after the first alarm hadpassed, it came to Basia's mind that if some one were sitting on thathorse he would not neigh, for the rider, not wishing to betray thepursuit, would stop the neighing.

  "Can it be that that is only Azya's horse following mine?" thoughtBasia.

  For the sake of precaution she drew both pistols out of the holsters;but the caution was needless. After a while something seemed black inthe thinning mist, and Azya's horse ran up with flowing mane anddistended nostrils. Seeing the pony, he began to approach him, givingout short and sudden neighs; and the pony answered immediately.

  "Horse, horse!" cried Basia.

  The animal, accustomed to the human hand, drew near and let itself betaken by the bridle. Basia raised her eyes to Heaven, and said:--

  "The protection of God!"

  In fact, the seizure of Azya's horse was a circumstance for her inevery way favorable. To begin with, she had the two best horses in thewhole detachment; secondly, she had a horse to change; and thirdly, thepresence of the beast assured her that pursuit would not start soon. Ifthe horse had run to the detachment, the Tartars, disturbed at sight ofhim, would have turned surely and at once to seek their leader; now itwill not come to their heads that anything could befall him, and theywill go back to look for Azya only when they are alarmed at his tooprolonged absence.

  "By that time I shall be far away," concluded Basia in her mind.

  Here she remembered for the second time that Azya's detachments werestationed in Yampol and Mohiloff. "It is necessary to go past throughthe broad steppe, and not approach the Dniester until in theneighborhood of Hreptyoff. That terrible man has disposed his troopscunningly, but God will save me."'

  Thus thinking, she collected her spirits and prepared to continue herjourney. At the pommel of Azya's saddle she found a musket, a horn withpowder, a box of bullets, a box of hemp-seed which the Tartar had thehabit of chewing continually. Basia, shortening the stirrups of Azya'ssaddle to her own feet, thought to herself that during the whole wayshe would live, like a bird, on those seeds, and she kept themcarefully near her.

  She determined to avoid people and farms; for in those wildernessesmore evil than good was to be looked for from every man. Fear oppressedher heart when she asked herself, "How shall I feed the horses?" Theywould dig grass out from under the snow, and pluck moss from thecrevices of rocks, but might they not die from bad food andexcessive-travelling? Still, she could not spare them.

  There was another fear: Would she not go astray in the desert? It waseasy to avoid that by travelling along the Dniester, but she could nottake that road. What would happen were she to enter gloomywildernesses, immense and roadless? How would she know whether she wasgoing northward, or in some other direction, if foggy days were tocome, days without sunshine, and nights without stars? The forests wereswarming with wild beasts; she cared less for that, having courage inher brave heart and having weapons. Wolves, going in packs, might bedangerous, it is true, but in general she feared men more than beasts,and she feared to go astray most of all.

  "Ah, God will show me the way, and will let me return to Michael," saidshe, aloud. Then she made the sign of the cross, wiped with her sleeveher face free from the moisture which made her pale cheeks cold, lookedwith quick eyes around the country, and urged her horse on to a gallop.