Kitabı oku: «On the Field of Glory», sayfa 18

And two riders pushed from the ranks quickly. One inclined to Pan Serafin, seized his hand straightway, and covered it with kisses; the other rushed to the priest's shoulder.

"Stanislav!" cried Pan Serafin.

"Yatsek!" shouted the priest.

The greetings and embraces continued till speech came to Pan Serafin, -

"For God's sake, whence come ye?"

"Our regiment was marching to Cracow. Yatsek and I had permission to visit you at Yedlinka. Meanwhile we learned at Radom, while halting for food there, that thou, father, and the priest, and the Bukoyemskis had set out an hour earlier by the highroad toward Kieltse."

"Did the prelate tell thee?"

"No! We did not see him. Radom Jews told us; we did not go then to Yedlinka, but moved on at once lest we might miss you. At midnight we heard firing, so we all rushed to give aid, thinking that bandits had fallen upon travellers. It did not occur to us that ye were the persons. God be thanked, God be thanked, that we came up in season!"

"Not bandits attacked us, but the Krepetskis. It is a question of Panna Anulka, who is with us."

"As God lives!" exclaimed Stanislav. "Then I think that his soul will leave Yatsek."

"I wrote to thee about her, but it is evident that my letter did not reach thee."

"No, for we are marching these three weeks. I have not written of late because I had to come hither."

Shouts from the Bukoyemskis, the attendants, and the warriors stopped further converse. At that moment also attendants ran up with lighted torches. A supply had been taken by Pan Serafin that he might have wherewith to give light during darkness. It was as clear on the road as in daylight, and in those bright gleams Yatsek saw the gray horse on which Panna Anulka was sitting.

He grew dumb at sight of her.

"Yes, she is with us," said Father Voynovski, seeing his astonishment.

Then Yatsek urged his horse forward, and halted before her. He uncovered his head, and remained there lost as he looked at her. His face was as white as chalk, his breath had almost left him, and he was speechless.

After a moment the cap fell to the earth from his fingers, his head dropped to the mane of the horse, and his eyes closed.

"But he is wounded!" cried Lukash Bukoyemski.

CHAPTER XXIV

Yatsek was really wounded. One of those robbers, who defended themselves to the utmost, cut him, with a scythe in the left shoulder, and since he and the men marched without mail, the very end of the iron had cut into his arm rather deeply from the shoulder to the elbow. The wound was not over grievous, but it bled quite profusely; because of this the young man had then fainted. The experienced Father Voynovski commanded to put him in a wagon, and, when the wound had been dressed, he left him in care of the women. Yatsek opened his eyes somewhat later, and began again to look, as at a rainbow, into the face of Panna Anulka, which was there bending over him.

Meanwhile the attendants filled the ditch and removed all obstructions. The wagons and the men passed to the dry road beyond, where they halted to bring the train into order, take some rest, and question the prisoners. From Tachevski the priest went to the Bukoyemskis to see if they had suffered. But they had not. The horses were torn and even stabbed with forks, but not seriously; the men themselves were in excellent humor, for all were admiring their valor, since they had crushed before war, more opponents than had many others during years of campaigning.

"Now, gentlemen, ye may join Pan Zbierhovski," said the hussars here and there. "From of old it is known, and God grant that men will see soon, that our regiment is the first even among hussars. Pan Zbierhovski admits no common men, or any man easily, but he will accept you with gladness, and we shall be charmed from our hearts to find you in our company."

The Bukoyemskis knew that this might not be, for they could not have the attendants, or the outfit demanded in such a high regiment, but they listened to those speeches with rapture, and when cups went the round, they let no man surpass them.

When that part was ended, the captured bandits were seized by their heads, and led from the mud to Zbierhovski and the priest and Pan Serafin. No bandit had escaped, for with a detachment of twelve hundred there were men to surround the whole quagmire and both ends of the ridgeway. The appearance of the prisoners astonished Pan Serafin. He had thought to find Martsian among them, as he had told Stanislav, and Martsian's Radom outcasts also; meanwhile he saw before him a ragged rabble reeking with turf and bespattered with mud of the ridgeway, a company made up, like all bodies of that kind, of deserters from the infantry, of runaway servants and serfs, in a word, of all kinds of wicked, wild scoundrels working at robbery in remote places and forests. Many such parties were raging, especially in the wooded region of Sandomir, and since they were strengthened by men who were eager for anything, men who if captured were threatened with terrible punishment, their attacks were uncommonly daring, and they fought savage battles.

The search through the quagmire continued for a time yet, then Pan Serafin turned to Zbierhovski.

"Gracious colonel," said he. "These are highway robbers. We thought them quite different. This was an attack of common bandits. We thank you, and all your men with grateful hearts for effective assistance, without which, as is possible, we should not have seen the sun rise this morning."

"These night marches are good," said Zbierhovski, and he smiled while he was speaking. "The heat does not trouble, and it is possible to serve others. Do you wish to examine these captives immediately?"

"Since I have looked at them closely already, it is not needed. The court in the town will examine them, and the headsman will guide them."

At this a tall, bony fellow, with a gloomy face, and light hair pushed out from the captives and said, as he bent to Pan Serafin's stirrup.

"Great mighty lord, spare our lives, and we will tell truth. We are common bandits, but the attack was not common."

The priest and Pan Serafin, on hearing this, looked at each other with roused curiosity.

"Who art thou?" asked the priest.

"I am a chief. There were two of us, for this party was formed of two bands, but the other man fell. Give me pardon, and I will tell everything."

Father Voynovski stopped for a moment.

"We cannot save you from justice," said he, "but for you it is better in every case to tell truth, than be forced to declare it under torture. Besides, if ye confess, God's judgment and man's will be more lenient."

The bandit looked at his companions, uncertain whether to speak or be silent. Meanwhile the priest added, -

"And if ye tell the whole truth, we can intercede with the king, and commend you to his mercy. He accepts offenders in the infantry, and recommends mercy now to judges."

"In that case," said the man, "I will tell everything. My name is Obuh; the leader of the other band was Kos, and a noble engaged us to fall on your graces."

"But do ye know the name of that noble?"

"I did not know him, for I am from distant places, but Kos knew him, and said his name was Vysh."

The priest and Pan Serafin looked at each other with astonishment.

"Vysh,⁶ didst thou say?"

"Yes."

"But was there no one with him?"

"There was another, a lean, thin, young man."

"Not they," said Pan Serafin to the priest in a whisper.

"But they may have been Martsian's company."

Then he said aloud to the man, -

"What did they tell you to do?"

"This: 'Do what ye like with the people,' said they; 'the wagons and plunder are yours; but in the company there is a young lady whom ye are to take and bring by roundabout ways between Radom and Zvolenie to Polichna. Beyond Polichna a party will attack you and take the lady. Ye will pretend to defend her, but not so as to harm our men. Ye will get a thaler apiece for this, besides what ye find in the wagons.'"

"That is as if on one's palm," said the priest.

"Then did only those two talk with Kos and thee?"

"Later, a third person came in the night with them; he gave us a ducat apiece to bind the agreement. Though the place was as dark as in a cellar, one of our men who had been a serf of his recognized that third person as Pan Krepetski."

"Ha! that is he!" cried Pan Serafin.

"And is that man here, or has he fallen?" inquired Father Voynovski.

"I am here!" called out a voice from some distance.

"Come nearer. Didst thou recognize Pan Krepetski? But how, since it was so dark, that thou couldst hit a man on the snout without knowing it?"

"Because I know him from childhood. I knew him by his bow-legs and his head, which sits, as it were, in a hole between his shoulders, and by his voice."

"Did he speak to you?"

"He spoke with us, and afterward I heard him speak to those who came with him."

"What did he say to them?"

"He said this: 'If I could have trusted money with you, I should not have come, even if the night were still darker.'"

"And wilt thou testify to this before the mayor in the town, or the starosta?"

"I will."

"When he heard this, Pan Zbierhovski turned to his attendants and said, -

"Guard this man with special care, for me."

CHAPTER XXV

They began now to counsel. The advice of the Bukoyemskis was to disguise some peasant woman in the dress of a lady, put her on horseback, give her attendants and soldiers dressed up as bandits, and go to the place designated by Martsian, and, when he made the attack as agreed upon, surround him immediately, and either wreak vengeance there, or take him to Cracow and deliver him to justice. They offered to go themselves, with great willingness, to carry out the plan, and swore that they would throw Martsian in fetters at the feet of Panna Anulka.

This proposal pleased all at the first moment, but when they examined it more carefully the execution seemed needless and difficult. Pan Zbierhovski might rescue from danger people whom he met on his march, but he had not the right to send soldiers on private expeditions, and he had no wish either to do so. On the other hand, since there was a bandit who knew and was ready to indicate to the courts the chief author of the ambush, it was possible to bring that same author to account any moment, and to have issued against him a sentence of infamy. For this reason both Pan Serafin and Father Voynovski grew convinced that there would be time for that after the war, since there was no fear that the Krepetskis, who owned large estates, would flee and abandon them. This did not please the Bukoyemskis, however, for they desired keenly to finish the question. They even declared that since that was the decision, they would go themselves with their attendants for Martsian. But Pan Serafin would not permit this, and they were stopped finally by Yatsek, who implored them by all that was sacred to leave Krepetski to him, and him only.

"I," said he, "will not act through courts against Martsian, but after all that I have heard from you here, if I do not fall in the war, as God is in heaven, I will find the man, and it will be shown whether infamy would not be pleasanter and easier also than that which will meet him."

And his "maiden" eyes glittered so fiercely that though the Bukoyemskis were unterrified warriors a shiver went through them. They knew in what a strange manner passion and mildness were intertwined in the spirit of Yatsek, together with an ominous remembrance of injustice.

He said then repeatedly: "Woe to him! – Woe to him!" and again he grew pale from his blood loss. Day had come already, and the morning light had tinted the world in green and rose colors; that light sparkled in the dewdrops, on the grass and the reeds, and the tree leaves and the needles of dwarf pines here and there on the edge of the quagmire. Pan Zbierhovski had commanded to bury the bodies of the fallen bandits, which was done very quickly, for the turf opened under spades easily, and when no trace of battle was left on that roadway, the march was continued toward Shydlovets.

Pan Serafin advised the young lady to sit again in the carriage, where she might have a good sleep before they reached the next halting place, but she declared so decisively that she would not desert Yatsek that even Father Voynovski did not try to remove her. So they went together, only two besides the driver, for sleep was so torturing Pani Dzvonkovski, that after a while they transferred her to the carriage.

Yatsek was lying face upward on bundles of hay arranged lengthwise in one side of the wagon, while she sat on the other, bending every little while toward his wounded shoulder, and watching to see if blood might not come through the bandages. At times she put a leather bottle of old wine to the mouth of the wounded man. This wine acted well to all seeming, for after a while he was wearied of lying, and had the driver draw out the bundle on which his feet were then resting.

"I prefer to ride sitting," said he, "since I feel all my strength now."

"But the wound, will that not pain you more if you are sitting?"

Yatsek turned his eyes to her rosy face, and said in a sad and low voice, "I will give the same answer as that knight long ago when King Lokietek saw him pierced with spears by the Knights of the Cross, on a battlefield. 'Is thy pain great?' asked the king. The knight showed his wounds then. 'These pain least of all,' said he in answer."

Panna Sieninski dropped her eyes. "But what pains you more?" inquired she in a whisper.

"A yearning heart, and separation, and the memory of wrongs inflicted."

For a while silence continued, but the hearts began to throb in both with power which increased every moment, for they knew that the time had come then in which they could and should confess everything which each had against the other.

"It is true," said she, "I did you an injustice, when, after the duel, I received you with angry face, and inhumanly. But that was the only time, and, though God alone knows how much I regretted that afterward, still I say it is my fault! and from my whole soul I implore you." Yatsek put his sound hand to his forehead.

"Not that," answered he, "was the thorn, not that the great anguish!"

"I know it was not that, but the letter from Pan Gideon. How could you suspect me of knowing the contents of the letter, or having suggested them?"

And she began to tell, with a broken voice, how it happened: how she had implored Pan Gideon to make a step toward being reconciled: how he had promised to write a heartfelt and fatherly letter, but he wrote entirely the opposite. Of this she learned only later from Father Voynovski, and from this it was shown that Pan Gideon having other plans, simply wanted to separate them from each other forever.

At the same time, since her words were a confession, and also a renewal of painful and bitter memories, her eyes were dimmed with tears, and from constraint and shame a deep blush came out on her cheeks from one instant to another.

"Did Father Voynovski," asked she at last, "not write to you that I knew nothing, and that I could not even understand why I received for my sincere feelings a recompense of that kind?"

"Father Voynovski," answered Yatsek, "only wrote me that you were going to marry Pan Gideon."

"But did he not write that I consented to do so only through orphanhood and pain and desertion, and out of gratitude to my guardian? For I knew not then how he had treated you; I only knew that I was despised and forgotten."

When he heard this Yatsek closed his eyes and began to speak with great sadness.

"Forgotten? Is that God's truth? I was in Warsaw, I was at the king's court, I went through the country with my regiment, but whatever I did, and wherever I travelled, not for one moment didst thou go from my heart and my memory. Thou didst follow me as his shadow a man. And during nights without sleep, in suffering and in pain, which came simply from torture, many a time have I called to thee: 'Take pity, have mercy! grant to forget thee!' But thou didst not leave me at any time, either in the day, or the night, or in the field, or under a house roof, until at last I understood that only then could I tear thee from my heart when I had torn the heart itself from my bosom."

Here he stopped, for his voice was choked from emotion; but after a time he continued, -

"So after that often and often I said in my prayers: 'O God, grant me death, for Thou seest that it is impossible for me to attain her, and impossible for me to be without her!' And that was before I had hoped for the favor of seeing thee in life again-thou, the only one in the world-thou, beloved!"

As he said this he bent toward her and touched her arm with his temple.

"Thou," whispered he, "art as that blood which gives life to me, as that sun in the heavens. The mercy of God is upon me, that I see thee once more- O beloved! beloved!"

And it seemed to her that Yatsek was singing some marvellous song at that moment. Her eyes were filled with a wave of tears then, and a wave of happiness flooded her heart. Again there was silence between them; but she wept long with such a sweet weeping as she had never known in her life till that morning.

"Yatsek," said she at last, "why have we so tormented each other?"

"God has rewarded us a hundred fold," said he in answer.

And for the third time there was silence between them; only the wagon squeaked on, pushing forward slowly over the ruts of the roadway. Beyond the forest they came out onto great fields bathed in sunlight; on those fields wheat was rustling, dotted richly with red poppies and blue star thistles. There was great calm in that region. Above fields on which the grain had been reaped, here and there skylarks were soaring, lost in song, motionless; on the edges of the fields sickles glittered in the distance; from the remoter green pastures came the cries and songs of men herding cattle. And to both it seemed that the wheat was rustling because of them; that the poppies and star thistles were blooming because of them; that, the larks were singing because of them; that the calls of the herdsmen were uttered because of them; that all the sunny peace of those fields and all those voices were simply repeating their ecstasy and happiness.

They were roused from this oblivion by Father Voynovski, who had pushed up unnoticed to the wagon.

"How art thou, Yatsus?" asked he.

Yatsek trembled and looked with shining eyes at him, as if just roused from slumber.

"What is it, benefactor?"

"How art thou?"

"Eh! it will not be better in paradise!"

The priest looked seriously first at him, then at the young lady.

"Is that true?" asked he.

And he galloped off to the company. But the delightful reality embraced them anew. They began to look on each other, and sink in the eyes of each other.

"O, thou not-to-be-looked-at-sufficiently!" said Yatsek.

But she lowered her eyes, smiled at the corners of her mouth till dimples appeared in her rosy cheeks, and asked in a whisper, -

"But is not Panna Zbierhovski more beautiful?"

Yatsek looked at her with amazement.

"What, Panna Zbierhovski?"

She made no answer; she simply laughed in her fist, with a laugh as resonant as a silver bell.

Meanwhile, when the priest had galloped to the company, the men, who loved Yatsek, fell to inquiring, -

"Well, how is it there? How is our wounded man?"

"He is no longer in this world!" replied Father Voynovski.

"As God lives! What has happened? How is he not in the world?"

"He is not, for he says that he is in paradise-a woman!!!"

The Bukoyemskis, as men who understand without metaphor all that is said to them, did not cease to look at the priest with astonishment and, removing their caps, were just ready to say, "eternal rest," when a general outbreak of laughter interrupted their pious thoughts and intention. But in that laughter of the company there was sincere good-will and sympathy for Yatsek. Some of the men had learned from Pan Stanislav how sensitive that cavalier was, and all divined how he must have suffered, hence the words of the priest delighted them greatly. Voices were heard at once, therefore: "God knows! we have seen how he fought with his feelings, how he answered questions at random, how he left buckles unfastened, how he forgot himself when eating or drinking, how he turned his eyes to the moon during night hours."

"Those are infallible signs of unfortunate love," added some. "It is true," put in others, "that he is now as if in paradise, for if no wounds give more pain than those caused by Love, there is no sweeter thing than mutuality."

These and similar remarks were made by Yatsek's comrades. Some of them, having learned of the hardships which the lady had passed through, and how shamefully Krepetski had treated her, fell to shaking their sabres, and crying; "Give him hither!" Some became sensitive over the maiden, some, having learned how Martsian had been handled by the Bukoyemskis, raised to the skies the native valor and wit of those brothers. But after a while universal attention was centred again on the lovers: "Well," cried out all, "let us shout to their health and good fortune et felices rerum successus!" and immediately a noisy throng moved toward the wagon on horseback. In one moment almost the whole regiment had surrounded Pan Yatsek and Panna Anulka. Loud voices thundered: "Vivant! floreant!" others cried before the time: "Crescite et multiplicamini!" Whether Panna Anulka was really frightened by those cries, or rather as an "insidious woman," she only feigned terror father Voynovski himself could not have decided. It is enough that, sheltering her bright head at the unwounded shoulder of Yatsek, she asked with shamefaced confusion, -

"What is this, Yatsek? what are they doing?"

He surrounded her with his sound arm, and said, -

"People are giving thee, dearest flower, and I am taking thee."

"After the war?"

"Before the war."

"In God's name, why so hurried?"

But it was evident that Yatsek had not heard this query for instead of replying, he said to her, -

"Let us bow to the dear comrades for this good-will, and thank them."

Hence they bowed toward both sides, which roused still greater enthusiasm. Seeing the blushing face of the maiden, which was as beautiful as the morning dawn, the warriors struck their thighs with their palms from admiration.

"By the dear God!" cried they. "One might be dazzled!"

"An angel would be enamoured; what can a sinful man do?"

"It is no wonder that he was withering with sorrow."

And again hundreds of voices thundered more powerfully, -

"Vivant! crescant! floreant!"

Amid those shouts, and in clouds of golden dust they entered Shydlovets. At the first moment the inhabitants were frightened, and, leaving in front of their houses the workshops in which they were cutting out whetstones from sandrock, they ran to their chambers. But, learning soon that those were the shouts of a betrothal, and not of anger, they rushed in a crowd to the street and followed the soldiers. A throng of horses and men was formed straightway. The kettledrums of the horsemen were beaten, the trumpets and crooked horns sounded. Gladness became universal. Even the Jews, who through fear had stayed longer in the houses, shouted: "Vivait!"⁷ though they knew not well what the question was.

But Tachevski said to Panna Anulka, -

"Before the war, before the war, even though death were to come one hour later."