With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕

it is all one, for you will go to hell anyhow for your covetousness. I’m too old a sparrow to be caught with chaff; and beat into yourself that if she is a powerful witch I am a more powerful wizard, for I learned the black art in Persia. She serves the devils, and they serve me, and I could plough with them as with oxen; but I don’t want to do so, keeping in mind, as I do, the salvation of my own soul.”

“That is well, my master; but for this time use your power, for it is always better to be on the safe side.”

“But I have more confidence in our just cause and the protection of God,” said Volodyovski. “Let the devils be the guard of Horpyna and Bogun, but with us are the angels of heaven, whom the best brigade in hell cannot withstand. On our behalf I make an offering of seven white wax candles to Saint Michael the Archangel.”

“Then I will add one more,” said Jendzian, “so that Pan Zagloba shouldn’t frighten me with damnation.”

“I will be the first to pack you off to hell,” said the noble, “if it should appear that you don’t know the places well.”

“Why shouldn’t I know? If we only reach Valadinka, I can find the place with my eyes bound. We will go along the shore toward the Dniester, and on the right hand will be the ravine, which we shall recognize by this, that the entrance to it is closed with a rock. At the first glance it will seem altogether impossible of entrance, but in the rock is an opening through which two horses can pass abreast. Once inside, no one can escape us, for that is the only entrance and exit. All around, the sides are so high that a bird can barely fly over them. The witch kills people who enter without permission, and there are many bones of men inside. Bogun gave orders not to notice these, but to ride on and shout: ‘Bogun! Bogun!’ Then she will come out to us with friendship. Besides Horpyna, there is Cheremís, who is a good marksman. We must kill them both.”

“I say nothing about Cheremís, but it will be enough to tie the woman.”

“How could you tie her? She is so strong that she tears armor to pieces like a shirt, and a horseshoe crumbles in her hand. Pan Podbipienta might possibly overpower her, but not we. But leave the matter; I have a consecrated bullet. Let the black hour come on that she-devil; otherwise she would fly after us like a wolf, and would howl to the Cossacks, and we should fail to bring back not only the young lady, but our own heads.”

In such conversation and counsels their time passed on the road. They travelled hurriedly, passing villages, hamlets, farms, and grave-mounds. They went through Yarmolintsi to Bar, from where they were to advance in the direction of Yampol and the Dniester. They went through the neighborhood in which Volodyovski had defeated Bogun and freed Zagloba from his hands; they even came to the same farm and stopped there over night. Sometimes they slept under the open sky in the steppes, and Zagloba enlivened these halting-places by narratives of his previous adventures, some of which had happened and some of which had never taken place. But the conversations were mostly about the princess and her coming liberation from captivity with the witch.

Issuing at length from the regions held in curb by the garrisons and squadrons of Lantskoronski, they entered the Cossack country, in which nothing remained of the Poles, for those who had not fled were exterminated by fire and sword. May had departed, followed by a sultry June, while they had barely finished a third of the journey, for the road was long and difficult. Happily no danger threatened them from the side of the Cossacks. They gave no account of themselves to the peasant parties, who usually took them for Zaporojian starshini. Still, they were asked from time to time who they were. Zagloba, if the inquirer was from the lower country, showed Bogun’s baton; if a common murderer from the mob, then, without getting from the horse, he struck the man with his foot in the breast and knocked him to the ground. The bystanders, seeing this, opened a way for them, thinking that they were not only their own, but also very distinguished, since they struck people⁠—“perhaps Krívonos, Burlai, or Father Hmelnitski himself.”

Zagloba complained greatly of the fame of Bogun, for the Zaporojians annoyed him too much with inquiries about the chief, through which delays on the road were not infrequent. And generally there was no end to the questions⁠—whether he was well, or alive, for the report of his death had spread as far as Yagorlik and the Cataracts. But when the travellers declared that he was well and free, and that they were his messengers, they were kissed and honored; all hearts were open to them, and even purses, of which the cunning servant of Skshetuski did not omit to take advantage.

In Yampol they were received by Burlai who with Zaporojian troops and the rabble was waiting for the Tartars of Budjak. This was an old and distinguished colonel. Years before he had taught Bogun his military craft. He went on expeditions over the Black Sea with him, and in one of these expeditions the two had plundered Sinope in company. He loved him therefore as a son, and received his messengers with gladness, not exhibiting the least distrust, especially since he had seen Jendzian with Bogun the previous year. But when he learned that Bogun was alive and going to Volynia, from joy he gave a feast to the messengers and drank with them himself.

Zagloba was afraid that Jendzian, when he had drunk wine, might say something dangerous; but it turned out that the youth, cunning as a fox, knew how to