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

is that we have found you, poor girl, without whom life was a burden to us.”

The princess inclined her sweet face to Zagloba. “I know not why you love me, but it is sure that you do not love me more than I do you.”

Zagloba began to puff with satisfaction. “Then you love me?”

“As I live, I do.”

“God reward you, for my old age will be lighter. Women pursue me yet, as was the case in Warsaw more than once during the election. Volodyovski is witness of that. But I don’t care for love, and in spite of my hot blood, I am content with the feeling of a father.”

Silence followed; but the horses began to snort violently, one after another⁠—a favorable omen.

“Good health, good health!” said the travellers.

The night was clear; the moon rose higher and higher in the sky, which was filled with twinkling stars, that became weaker and paler. The tired horses lessened their speed, and weariness seized the travellers. Volodyovski reined in his horse first.

“The dawn is not distant,” said he; “it is time to rest.”

“It is,” said Zagloba. “I am so sleepy that my horse seems to have two heads.”

But before resting, Jendzian prepared supper. He made a fire, removed the saddlebags from a horse, and took out provisions which he had obtained from Burlai in Yampol, such as corn bread, cold meat, and Wallachian wine. At the sight of these two leather bags, well filled out with liquid which gave forth a pleasant sound, Zagloba forgot his sleep; the others also fell to eating and drinking with a good will. There was abundance for all; and when they were satisfied, Zagloba wiped his mouth and said⁠—

“Till death I shall not cease to repeat, ‘Wondrous are the judgments of God!’ Now, my young lady, you are free; and here we sit comforted under the sky, drinking Burlai’s wine. I will not say that Hungarian would not be better, for this smells of the skin, but on the road it will pass.”

“There is one thing at which I cannot wonder sufficiently,” said Helena⁠—“that Horpyna consented so easily to give me up to you.”

Zagloba looked at Volodyovski, then at Jendzian, and blinked rapidly.

“She consented, for she had to. There is nothing to hide, for it is no shame that we rubbed out both Cheremís and the witch.”

“How?” asked the princess, with fright.

“Didn’t you hear the shots?”

“I heard them, but thought Cheremís was firing.”

“It was not Cheremís, but this young fellow here, who shot the witch through and through. The devil sits in him, we don’t dispute that. But he could not act otherwise; for the witch⁠—whether it was because she knew something, or was stubborn⁠—insisted on going with us. It was difficult to permit that, for she would have seen at once that we were not going to Kiev. He shot her, and I killed Cheremís⁠—a real African monster⁠—and I think that God will not count it ill of me. There must be a universal disgust of him in even the regions below. Just before leaving the ravine I went ahead and pulled the bodies aside a little, so that you might not be frightened at them or take it as a bad omen.”

“In these terrible times I have seen too many dead persons who were kindred of mine to be frightened at the sight of slain bodies,” said the princess; “still I should prefer not to have blood shed, so that God might not punish us for it.”

“It was not a knightly deed,” said Volodyovski, harshly. “I would not put my hand to it.”

“What is the use of thinking over it,” said Jendzian, “when it could not be avoided? If we had destroyed some good person I should not speak; but an enemy of God may be killed; and I myself saw how that witch entered into fellowship with devils. It is not for her that I am sorry.”

“And why is Pan Jendzian sorry?” asked the princess.

“Because money is buried there, of which Bogun told me; but you gentlemen were so urgent that I had no time to dig it up, though I know well where it is, near the mill. My heart was cut also at having to leave so much property of every kind in that room where you, my lady, lived.”

“Just see what a servant you are going to have!” said Zagloba to the princess. “With the exception of his master, there is no one, not the devil himself, from whom he would not strip skin to make a coat-collar for himself.”

“With God’s help, Jendzian will not complain of my ingratitude,” answered Helena.

“I thank you humbly,” said he, kissing her hand.

During this time Volodyovski sat with a sullen look, drinking wine quietly from the skin, till his unusual silence attracted Zagloba’s attention.

“Ah, Pan Michael,” said he, “you have given us scarcely a word.” Here the old man turned to Helena. “I have not told you that your beauty has deprived him of reason and speech.”

“You would better take a nap before daylight,” was the little knight’s reply; and he began to move his mustaches like a rabbit trying to gain courage.

But the old noble was right. The beauty of the princess had kept the little knight in a sort of continual ecstasy. He looked at her, looked again, and in his mind he asked: “Can it be that such a woman moves upon the earth?”

He had seen much beauty in his day. Beautiful were the Princesses Anna and Barbara Zbaraska, and Anusia Borzobogata, charming beyond expression. Panna Jukovkna, to whom Roztvorovski was paying court, had many a charm, and so had Vershulovna and Skoropadska and Bohovitnianka; but none of these could compare with that marvellous flower of the steppe. In presence of the others Volodyovski was vivacious, full of speech; but now, when he looked on those velvet eyes, sweet and languishing, on the silken lashes, the shade of which fell on the pupils, on the arrowy form, on the bosom lightly moved