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

sufficient that he did not wish to show himself. He was sorry to leave Chigirin, it was so pleasant for him; no one inquired about anything there, and Zagloba had become so accustomed to everybody⁠—to the nobility, the managers of crown estates, and the Cossack elders. True, the elders had scattered in different directions, and the nobility sat in their corners fearing the storm; but Bogun was the prince of companions and drinkers. Having become acquainted at the glass, he made friends with Zagloba straightway. After that one was not seen without the other. The Cossack scattered gold for two, the noble lied, and each being of restless mind was happy with the other. But when it came to him either to remain in Chigirin and fall under the knife of the rabble or to go with Bogun, Zagloba decided for the latter.

“If you are so determined,” said he; “I will go too; I may be of use or restrain you when necessary. We have become altogether accustomed to each other; but I had no thought of anything like this.”

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 noble 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