King Stakh's Wild Hunt

by Uladzimir Karatkevich

  Therefore I left the door half-open, put a handkerchief near the axle and myself sat down not far away on the floor, with my revolver on my knees. I had to blow out the candle, for its light might frighten the mysterious creature if it had thought of creeping out of its hiding-place. The candle burning round the corner in the corridor all night, even though dimly, still gave some light, and through the window an indefinite grey light also poured in.

  I don't know how long I sat there with my chin buried in my knees. It was about twelve when drowsiness began to overtake me, my eyes became glued together. No matter how I fought sleep, I nodded: the past sleepless nights were telling on me. In an instant consciousness slipped away and I fell into a kind of a dark, stuffy abyss.

  Have you ever tried to sleep sitting, your back leaning against a wall or a tree? Try it. You will become convinced that the sensation of falling was left us from our forefather — the monkey: for him it had been necessary to prevent his falling off the tree. And, sitting against the tree, you will, in your sleep, fall very often, awakening and again falling asleep. Finally, wonderful dreams overcome your soul, a million years of man's existence will disappear, and it will seem to you that under the tree a prehistoric mammoth is going to a watering-place and the eyes of a cave bear are burning from under a cliff.

  In approximately such a state was I. Dreams… Dreams… It seemed to me I was sitting in a tree and I was afraid to let myself down, for a pithecanthrope was stealthily making his way along the ground under me. And it was night and wolves were moaning behind the trees. At that very moment I “fell” and opened my eyes.

  In the semi-darkness a strange creature was moving straight in front of me. Green, old-fashioned clothes, covered with dust and cobwebs, a long head stretching out as a bean seed, eyelids resembling a frog's and lowered in thought, almost covering its eyes, and hands hanging down, and long, long fingers almost touching the floor.

  The Little Man of Marsh Firs moved past and floated on farther, while I followed after him with my revolver. He opened a window, then another one and crept inside. I stuck my head out after him and saw him walking with the ease of a monkey along a narrow ledge the width of three fingers! Here and there he nipped off a few buds from the branches of a lime-tree touching the wall, and champed them. With one hand he helped himself to move on. Then he crept into the corridor again, closed the window and slowly moved ahead somewhere. A fearful sight was this inhuman creature! Once it seemed to me that I heard a kind of mumbling. The Little Man beat himself on his forehead and was lost in the dark where the light of the distant candle did not reach. I hurried after him, because I was afraid he would disappear. When I found myself in the dark I saw two fiery eyes that looked from around the corner and were inexplicably threatening.

  I rushed to the Little Man, but he began to groan grievously and wandered off somewhere, shaking on his little legs. Turning around, he fixed his gaze on me threatening me with a long finger. For a moment I was dumbfounded, but collected myself, caught up with the Little Man and grabbed him by the shoulders. And my heart began to beat happily, for it was not a ghost.

  When I dragged the creature out into the light, it put a finger into its mouth and pronounced in a squeaking voice:

  “Aam-aam!”

  “Who are you?” shaking him.

  And the Little Man, the former ghost, answered — his answer a learned-by-heart one:

  “I'm Bazyl. I'm Bazyl.”

  And suddenly a slyness which exists even in idiots lit up his eyes:

  “I saw you. Ha-ha! I was sitting under the table — under the table, my brother was feeding me. And you suddenly ׮”

  And again he champed with that large mouth of his reaching to his ears.

  I began to understand everything. Two villains, the ringleader of the Wild Hunt and Bierman, both pursuing one and the same aim — to get rid of Janoŭskaja — hit upon, as a matter of fact, one and the same idea. Bierman, knowing that he is a relative of Janoŭskaja, arrived at Marsh Firs and found the listening-in channels and passages in the walls. After that he secretly went to town, abandoned his mother to her fate, took back with him his brother who avoided people not because he preferred being alone, — he was simply a hopeless idiot. Not for nothing had his bad behaviour surprised the people in the club (Bierman had, of course, brought not his brother to the club but some chance person). Bierman roomed together with his brother at Marsh Firs, taking advantage of the fact that nobody ever came to see him. And he ordered his brother to sit quietly. Once when I happened to come in on them during feeding time the Little Man, it turns out, was under the table, and had I reached out my hand, I could have grabbed him.

  During the night Bierman would lead him out into the secret passages where he walked about, as a result of which in the listening-in channels sounds were created that were heard by all the people living in the house.

  From time to time Bierman let the Little Man out into the corridor: in that case he'd put on him an old-fashioned costume especially made for such occasions. While his little brother took his walk, Bierman waited for him at the open door of the passage, for the Little Man couldn't open it himself. Sometimes he allowed him to take a walk in the open air. With the ease of a monkey, or rather with that of a spider, he ran along the ledges of the building, glancing into the windows, and in case of an alarm, disappeared like lightning behind the numerous corners of the castle.

  It was very easy for the Little Man to do all this, nothing easier, because his cave mind completely lacked the instinct of self-preservation. He walked along a ledge as calmly as we do when we walk along a railway track for fun.

  It was during one such walk of his for an airing that his meeting with me took place. What then happened afterwards? Likol had sent me a letter in which, in order to call me out of the house, he mentioned that he had information about the Little Man. Bierman, who had been watching me closely of late, read the letter and hastened to the meeting-place hoping to come to an agreement with the author of the letter. There he was taken for me and the tragedy occurred, a tragedy to which I had become a belated witness.

  And the dwarf had sat all these days in the passages, lacking the strength to get out, and had become entirely weakened by hunger.

  If I hadn't opened the door, he would probably have died of hunger without having guessed why his brother had left him, his brother who always fed him and caressed him.

  What was I to do with him? The unfortunate fellow was not guilty that he was born such a creature into this world. Here he disappears from our story. I fed him, informed Janoŭskaja of the death of one of the ghosts inhabiting the castle, and on the following day sent him off to the district hospital for the weak-minded.

  And for the first time I saw hope beginning to shine in the eyes of the mistress of Marsh Firs, and although the light in them was tender, it was as yet but weak.

  Chapter The Seventeenth

  “Is that you, Ryhor?”

  “Me, Andrej. More exactly, us.”

  I held out my hand to Ryhor. This night was the first cloudless and moonlit night that we'd had in a long time. The full moon cast a blue-silver light over the peat-bogs the waste land, the Marsh Firs Park and far, far away it shone in a little window of some lonely hut. The night had become a cold one, and now the swamps were “sweating”, giving birth to a mobile white fog in the hollows.

  Ryhor stepped out from among the bushes growing at the broken-down fence, and people appeared behind him in the darkness, about twelve in all.

  They were mužyks. All of them in leather-coats turned inside out, in identical white felt hats.

  And they all looked alike in the moonlight: as if the earth itself had simultaneously given birth to them. I saw that two of them had long guns the same as Ryhor's. A third held a pistol in his hand, the rest were armed with boar-spears and pitchforks, and one had an ordinary club.

  “Who are they?” I asked in surprise.

  “Mužyks,” Ryhor said. “Our patience is exh
austed. Two days ago the Wild Hunt trampled to death the brother of this mužyk. His name's Michał.”

  Michał had deep little eyes, high cheekbones, beautiful paws, more so than Dubatoŭk's. His eyes were red and swollen, and his hands gripped his gun so hard that the knuckles of his fingers had even turned white. He looked gloomy and sullen, but clever.

  “Enough's enough!” Ryhor said. “The only thing left for us to do is to die. But we don't want to die. And you, Biełarecki, if anything is not to your liking, keep quiet. This is our affair. And God allows the whole world to rise against the horse-thief. Today we'll teach them not only not to trample the people, but even not to eat bread. These people with Michał at their head will remain here under your command. Mine are waiting for me at the swamp that surrounds the Janoŭski Virgin Forest near the Witch's mortar. There are twenty more of them there. If the Hunt comes there — we'll meet them, if they take another road unknown to us ׹ou'll meet them. We'll keep watch at the Virgin Forest, the Cold Hollow and the waste lands that are next to us. If you need help, send a man.”

  And Ryhor disappeared into the darkness.

  We arranged an ambush. I instructed six mužyks to take their places along both sides of the road at the broken-down fence, and three somewhat farther on, thus forming a sack. In case anything should happen, the three would have to block the way to retreat for the Wild Hunt. I took my place behind the large tree by the very path.

  I forgot to say that for each one of us there were three torches. Quite enough, in case of need, to light up everything around us.

  As my people in leather coats lay down, they merged with the earth — they couldn't be distinguished from the hummocks, their grey sheepskins became one with the beaten down autumn grass.

  In this way we waited quite a long time. Above the marshland floated the moon, from time to time some blue sparks flashed there, the fog sometimes became a compact, low sheet up to the knees, sometimes it slowly moved away again.

  They, as always, appeared unexpectedly. Twenty misty horsemen on twenty misty horses. Their approach noiseless and terrifying. A silent mass moved on us. The bits did not ring, no human voices were heard. Capes were waving with the wind. The Hunt was dashing on. And at its head raced King Stach, his hat, as previously, pulled down over his face. We had expected them to come flying with the wind, but at about a hundred steps away they dismounted, spent much time near the horses' hoofs. When they moved on again, an altogether unexpected thunder of hoofs reached us, breaking into the silence.

  Slowly they came nearer and nearer to us, they were already passing the quagmire and were riding up to the fence, but here they passed round it. Stach came riding straight towards me, and I could see his face, a face white as chalk.

  When he was almost at my tree, I stepped forward, took his horse by the bridle. Simultaneously — with my left hand in which I clutched the riding-crop, — I moved his hat onto the back of his head.

  It was Varona's face I saw — a face pale as death, eyes without a living light in them, large dead eyes.

  So unexpected it was that he certainly did not know what to do, but I, to make up for it, knew very well what I should do.

  “So you are King Stach?” I asked quietly, and hit him in the face with the riding-crop.

  Varona's horse reared and dashed away from me into the group of horsemen.

  At that very instant the guns thundered from the ambush, the torches blazed, and everything was in a whirl in a mad sea of fire. The horses reared, the horsemen fell, someone yelled in a heart-rending voice: I still remember only Michał's face as he cold-bloodedly took aim. A cone of bullets flashed out from a long gun. Then a young man's face floated in front of me, the face of that man with high cheek-bones; his long tresses of hair were falling down his forehead. The fellow was working with a pitchfork as on a threshing floor, then lifted it and with terrific strength thrust it into the belly of the rearing horse. The horseman, the horse, and the man fell down together. But I remained standing, and in spite of the fact that shots were already coming also from the Hunt, and that bullets were whistling overhead, I deliberately chose whom to shoot at from among the horsemen energetically surrounding me. Shots came pouring on them also from behind.

  “Brothers, treachery!”

  “Our galloping is over!”

  “Save us!”

  “Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!”

  I saw fear on the faces of these bandits, and the joy of revenge took possession of me. They should have thought beforehand that the day of reckoning would come. I saw the mužyk with the club breaking into the thick of the fight, beating violent strokes with it. All the old fury, all the long-suffering now exploded in an attack of unheard of passion and fighting bravery. Somebody jerked off one of the hunters from his saddle and the horse dragged his head by the roots.

  Within ten minutes all, in fact, was over. The riderless horses neighed horribly, the killed and wounded lay like sheaves on the ground, Varona alone, like the devil, dodged about among the mužyks, beating them off with a sword. His revolver he clutched between his teeth. He fought splendidly. Then he saw me. His face became distorted with such terrible hatred, that even now I remember it, and sometimes see in my dreams.

  Having trampled down one of the peasants with his horse, he grabbed his revolver.

  “Beware, you villain! You've taken her away from me! But there'll be no caresses for you!”

  The peasant with the long whiskers pulled him by a leg and due only to that I didn't crash to the ground with a hole in my skull. Varona understood he would be pulled off his horse now, and firing point-blank, he killed the long-whiskered man on the spot.

  And then I, having succeeded in reloading my revolver, sent all the six bullets into him. Varona, grasping at the air with his hands, reeled in his saddle, but nevertheless turned his horse around, knocked the high-cheek-boned man to the ground and dashed off in the direction of the swamp. He was all the time grasping at the air with his hands, but stayed in the saddie and together with it (the saddle-girth must have broken) slid down the side until he was hanging over the ground. The horse turned aside. Varona's head struck heavily against a stone post in the fence.

  Varona flew out of his saddle, struck against the ground and remained lying motionless, dead.

  It was a crushing defeat. The terrible Wild Hunt was overcome by the hands of ordinary mužyks on the very first day that they exerted themselves a little and began to believe that with pitchforks they could rise even against phantoms.

  I examined the battlefield. The peasants were leading the horses off to the side. They were real Paleśsie drygants. All striped and with spots, with white nostrils, with eyes in whose depths a red flame blazed. Not surprising then that their capering in the fog seemed so unnatural, for I knew that this breed was distinguished for its remarkably long strides.

  And unexpectedly two more riddles were solved. Firstly, four sheepskin bags hung at the saddle of each of the hunters. In case of need they could be put on the horses' hoofs and tied at the pasterns. Their steps became entirely noiseless. Secondly, among the dead and the wounded I saw three scarecrows on the ground that were dressed like the hunters, but they were tied to their saddles with ropes. Evidently, Varona did not have enough people.

  However, our losses were also heavy ones. We'd never have conquered this band of professional murderers if our attack had not been so unexpected. But even as it was, our results were bad: the mužyks just could not fight. The fellow with the prominent cheek-bones who was knocked down by Varona's horse, lay with his head smashed. The long-legged mužyk had a bullet hole darkening in the very middle of his forehead. The mužyk with the club lay on the ground, his feet jerking: he was dying. Of the wounded there were twice as many. I also received a wound. A bullet at the rebound had flicked me in the back of my head.

  We were swearing: Michał was bandaging my head and I was screaming that it was a trifle, rubbish. Soon one man was found alive among the Hunters, and he was led to a blazin
g camp-fire. In front of me stood Mark Stachievič, his hand hanging down at his side like a whip. It was that very same young aristocrat whose conversation with Pacuk I had overheard sitting in the tree. He looked very colourful in his cherry-coloured chuga, in a little hat, with an empty sabre scabbard at his side. “It seems you threatened the mužyks, didn't you, Stachievič? You will die as these here,” I said calmly. “But we can let you go free, because, alone, you are not dangerous. You will depart from the Janoŭski region and will remain alive, if you tell us about all the foul deeds of your gang.”

  He hesitated, looked at the severe faces of the mužyks, the crimson light of the camp-fire lighting up their faces, their leather-coats, their hands gripping their pitchforks, and he understood there was no mercy to be expected. Pitchforks from all sides were surrounding him, touching his body.

  “Dubatoŭk is to blame — it's all his doings,” he said sullenly. “Janoŭskaja's castle was to have been inherited by Haraburda, but he was greatly in debt to Dubatoŭk. Nobody, except us, Dubatoŭk's people, knew about that. We drank at his place and he gave us money. While himself he dreamed of the castle. He did not want to sell anything from that place, although the castle cost a lot of money. Varona said that if all the things in the castle were sold to museums, thousands could be realized. A chance event brought them together. At first Varona did not want to kill Janoŭskaja even though she had refused to marry him. But after Śvieciłovič't appearance, he agreed. The tale about King Stach's Wild Hunt came into Dubatoŭk's head three years ago. Dubatoŭk has hidden money laid aside somewhere, although he seems to be living poorly. In general he is a liar, very sly and secretive. He can twist the cleverest man round his little finger, he can pretend to be such a bear you'd be at a loss what to think. And so he went to the best of stud farms, owned by a lord who had become impoverished in recent years, and bought all his drygants. Then he brought them to the Janoŭski Reserve where we built a hide-out for ourselves and a stable. Our ability to tear along through the quagmire, where nobody can even walk, surprised everybody. But nobody knows how long we crept along the Giant's Gap in search of secret paths. And we found them. And studied them. And taught the horses. And then we dashed through places where the paths were up to the elbow in the quagmire, but at the sides — impassable marsh land. And the horses are a miracle! They rush to Dubatoŭk's call as dogs do. They sense the quagmire, and when a path breaks off, they can make enormous leaps. And we always went on the hunt only at night, when fog creeps over the land. And that's why everyone considered us phantoms. And we always kept silent. It was risky. But what could we do: die of hunger on a tiny piece of land? And Dubatoŭk paid. And we were not only driving Janoŭskaja to madness or death, but we even put the fear of God into those impudent serfs and taught them not to have too high an opinion of themselves. It was Dubatoŭk who got Haraburda to force Kulša to invite the little girl, because he knew that her father would be anxious about her. And we intercepted Raman on the way and seized him. Oh! And what a chase it was! — Ran away like the devil… But his horse broke a leg.”