Fire in the Steppe

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  All this lasted one twinkle of an eye. He indeed foresaw the attack, and put out his hand with the speed of a lightning flash; but he did not succeed in calculating her movement. The hands passed each other, and Basia, with all the despairing strength of her young and vigorous arm, struck him with the ivory butt of the pistol between the eyes.

  The blow was so terrible that Azya was not able even to cry, and he fell backward, drawing her after him in his fall.

  Basia raised herself in a moment, and, springing on her horse, shot off like a whirlwind in the direction opposite the Dnieper, toward the broad steppes.

  The curtain of fog closed behind her. The horse, dropping his ears, rushed on at random among the rocks, clefts, ravines, and breaches. Any moment he might run into some cleft, any moment he might crush himself and his rider against a rocky corner; but Basia looked at nothing; for her the most terrible danger was Azya and the Tartars. A wonderful thing it was, that now, when she had freed herself from the hands of the robber, and when he was lying apparently dead among the rocks, dread mastered all her feelings. Lying with her face to the mane of the horse, shooting on in the fog, like a deer chased by wolves, she began to fear Azya more than when she was in his arms; and she felt terror and weakness and that which a helpless child feels, which, wandering where it wished, has gone astray, and is alone and deserted. Certain weeping voices rose in her heart, and began, with groaning, with timidity, with complaint, and with pity, to call for protection: "Michael, save me! Michael, save me!"

  The horse rushed on and on; led by a wonderful instinct, he sprang over breaches, avoided with quick movement prominent cliff corners, until at last the stony ground ceased to sound under his feet; evidently he had come to one of those open "meadows" which stretched here and there among the ravines.

  Sweat covered the horse, his nostrils were rattling loudly, but he ran and ran.

  "Whither can I go?" thought Basia. And that moment she answered herself: "To Hreptyoff."

  But new alarm pressed her heart at thought of that long road lying through terrible wildernesses. Quickly too she remembered that Azya had left detachments of his men in Mohiloff and Yampol. Doubtless these were all in the conspiracy; all served Azya, and would seize her surely, and take her to Rashkoff; she ought, therefore, to ride far into the steppe, and only then turn northward, thus avoiding the settlements on the Dniester.

  She ought to do this all the more for the reason that if men were sent to pursue her, beyond doubt they would go near the river; and meanwhile it might be possible to meet some of the Polish commands in the wide steppes, on their way to the fortresses.

  The speed of the horse decreased gradually. Basia, being an experienced rider, understood at once that it was necessary to give him time to recover breath, otherwise he would fall; she felt also that without a horse in those deserts she was lost.

  She restrained, therefore, his speed, and went some time at a walk. The fog was growing thin, but a cloud of hot steam rose from the poor beast.

  Basia began to pray.

  Suddenly she heard the neighing of a horse amid the fog a few hundred yards behind.

  Then the hair rose on her head.

  "Mine will fall dead, but so will that one!" said she, aloud; and again she shot on.

  For some time her horse rushed forward with the speed of a dove pursued by a falcon, and he ran long, almost to the last of his strength; but the neighing was heard continually behind in the distance. There was in that neighing which came out of the fog something at once of immeasurable yearning and threatening; still, after the first alarm had passed, it came to Basia's mind that if some one were sitting on that horse he would not neigh, for the rider, not wishing to betray the pursuit, would stop the neighing.

  "Can it be that that is only Azya's horse following mine?" thought Basia.

  For the sake of precaution she drew both pistols out of the holsters; but the caution was needless. After a while something seemed black in the thinning mist, and Azya's horse ran up with flowing mane and distended nostrils. Seeing the pony, he began to approach him, giving out short and sudden neighs; and the pony answered immediately.

  "Horse, horse!" cried Basia.

  The animal, accustomed to the human hand, drew near and let itself be taken by the bridle. Basia raised her eyes to Heaven, and said:—

  "The protection of God!"

  In fact, the seizure of Azya's horse was a circumstance for her in every way favorable. To begin with, she had the two best horses in the whole detachment; secondly, she had a horse to change; and thirdly, the presence of the beast assured her that pursuit would not start soon. If the horse had run to the detachment, the Tartars, disturbed at sight of him, would have turned surely and at once to seek their leader; now it will not come to their heads that anything could befall him, and they will go back to look for Azya only when they are alarmed at his too prolonged absence.

  "By that time I shall be far away," concluded Basia in her mind.

  Here she remembered for the second time that Azya's detachments were stationed in Yampol and Mohiloff. "It is necessary to go past through the broad steppe, and not approach the Dniester until in the neighborhood of Hreptyoff. That terrible man has disposed his troops cunningly, but God will save me."'

  Thus thinking, she collected her spirits and prepared to continue her journey. At the pommel of Azya's saddle she found a musket, a horn with powder, a box of bullets, a box of hemp-seed which the Tartar had the habit of chewing continually. Basia, shortening the stirrups of Azya's saddle to her own feet, thought to herself that during the whole way she would live, like a bird, on those seeds, and she kept them carefully near her.

  She determined to avoid people and farms; for in those wildernesses more evil than good was to be looked for from every man. Fear oppressed her heart when she asked herself, "How shall I feed the horses?" They would dig grass out from under the snow, and pluck moss from the crevices of rocks, but might they not die from bad food and excessive-travelling? Still, she could not spare them.

  There was another fear: Would she not go astray in the desert? It was easy to avoid that by travelling along the Dniester, but she could not take that road. What would happen were she to enter gloomy wildernesses, immense and roadless? How would she know whether she was going northward, or in some other direction, if foggy days were to come, days without sunshine, and nights without stars? The forests were swarming with wild beasts; she cared less for that, having courage in her brave heart and having weapons. Wolves, going in packs, might be dangerous, it is true, but in general she feared men more than beasts, and she feared to go astray most of all.

  "Ah, God will show me the way, and will let me return to Michael," said she, aloud. Then she made the sign of the cross, wiped with her sleeve her face free from the moisture which made her pale cheeks cold, looked with quick eyes around the country, and urged her horse on to a gallop.

  CHAPTER XL.

  No one thought of searching for Tugai Bey's son; therefore he lay on the ground until he recovered consciousness. When he had come to his senses, he sat upright, and wishing to know what was happening to him, began to look around. But he saw the place as if in darkness; then he discovered that he was looking with only one eye, and badly with that one. The other was either knocked out, or filled with blood.

  Azya raised his hands to his face. His fingers found icicles of blood stiff on his mustaches; his mouth too was full of blood which was suffocating him so that he had to cough and spit it out a number of times; a terrible pain pierced his face at this spitting; he put his fingers above his mustaches, but snatched them away with a groan of suffering.

  Basia's blow had crushed the upper part of his nose, and injured his cheek-bone. He sat for a time without motion; then he began to look around with that eye in which some sight remained, and seeing a streak of snow in a cleft he crept up to it, seized a handful and applied it to his broken face.

  This brought great relief straightway; and while the melting s
now flowed down in red streaks over his mustaches, he collected another handful and applied it again. Besides, he began to eat snow eagerly, and that also brought relief to him. After a time the immense weight which he felt on his head became so much lighter that he called to mind all that had happened. But at the first moment he felt neither rage, anger, nor despair; bodily pain had deadened all other feelings, and left but one wish,—the wish to save himself quickly.

  Azya, when he had eaten a number of handfuls more of snow, began to look for his horse; the horse was not there; then he understood that if he did not wish to wait till his men came to look for him, he must go on foot. Supporting himself on the ground with his hands, he tried to rise, but howled from pain and sat down again.

  He sat perhaps an hour, and again began to make efforts. This time he succeeded in so far that he rose, and, resting his shoulders against the cliff, was able to remain on his feet; but when he remembered that he must leave the support and make one step, then a second and a third in the empty expanse, a feeling of weakness and fear seized him so firmly that he almost sat down again.

  Still he mastered himself, drew his sabre, leaned on it, and pushed forward; he succeeded. After some steps he felt that his body and feet were strong, that he had perfect command of them, only his head was, as it were, not his own, and like an enormous weight was swaying now to the right, now to the left, now to the front. He had a feeling also as if he were carrying that head, shaky and too heavy, with extraordinary care, and with extraordinary fear that he would drop it on the stones and break it.

  At times, too, the head turned him around, as if it wished him to go in a circle. At times it became dark in his one eye; then he supported himself with both hands on the sabre. The dizziness of his head passed away gradually; but the pain increased always, and bored, as it were, into his forehead, into his eyes, into his whole head, till whining was forced from his breast. The echoes of the rocks repeated his groans, and he went forward in that desert, bloody, terrible, more like a vampire than a man.

  It was growing dark when he heard the tramp of a horse in front.

  It was the orderly coming for commands.

  That evening Azya had strength to order pursuit; but immediately after he lay down on skins, and for three days could see no one except the Greek barber[25] who dressed his wounds, and Halim, who assisted the barber. Only on the fourth day did he regain his speech, and with it consciousness of what had happened.

  Straightway his feverish thoughts followed Basia. He saw her fleeing among rocks and in wild places; she seemed to him a bird that was flying away forever; he saw her nearing Hreptyoff, saw her in the arms of her husband, and at that sight a pain carried him away which was more savage than his wound, and with the pain sorrow, and with the sorrow shame for the defeat which he had suffered.

  "She has fled, she has fled!" repeated he, continually; and rage stifled him so that at times presence of mind seemed to be leaving him again.

  "Woe!" answered he, when Halim tried to pacify him, and give assurance that Basia could not escape pursuit; and he kicked the skins with which the old Tartar had covered him, and with his knife threatened him and the Greek. He howled like a wild beast, and tried to spring up, wishing to fly himself to overtake her, to seize her, and then from anger and wild love stifle her with his own hands.

  At times he was wandering in delirium, and summoned Halim to bring the head of the little knight quickly, and to confine the commandant's wife, bound, there in that chamber. At times he talked to her, begged, threatened; then he stretched out his hands to draw her to him. At last he fell into a deep sleep, and slept for twenty-four hours; when he woke the fever had left him entirely, and he was able to see Krychinski and Adurovich.

  They were anxious, for they knew not what to do. The troops which had gone out under young Novoveski were not to return, it is true, before two weeks; but some unexpected event might hasten their coming, and then it was necessary to know what position to take. It is true that Krychinski and Adurovich were simply feigning a return to the service of the Commonwealth; but Azya was managing the whole affair: he alone could give them directions what to do in emergency; he alone could explain on which side was the greatest profit, whether to return to the dominions of the Sultan or to pretend, or how long to pretend, that they were serving the Commonwealth. They both knew well that in the end of ends Azya intended to betray the Commonwealth; but they supposed that he might command them to wait for the war before disclosing their treason, so as to betray most effectively. His indications were to be a command for them; for he had put himself on them as a leader, as the head of the whole affair, the most crafty, the most influential, and, besides, renowned among all the hordes as the son of Tugai Bey.

  They came hurriedly, therefore, to his bed, and bowed before him. With a bandaged face and only one eye, he was still weak, but his health was restored.

  "I am sick," began he, at once. "The woman that I wished to take with me tore herself out of my hands, after wounding me with the butt of a pistol. She was the wife of Volodyovski, the commandant; may pestilence fall on him and all his race!"

  "May it be as thou hast said!" answered the two captains.

  "May God grant you, faithful men, happiness and success!"

  "And to thee also, oh, lord!" answered the captains. Then they began to speak of what they ought to do.

  "It is impossible to delay, or to defer the Sultan's service till war begins," said Azya; "after what has happened with this woman they will not trust us, and will attack us with sabres. But before they attack, we will fall upon this place and burn it, for the glory of God. The handful of soldiers we will seize; the towns-people, who are subjects of the Commonwealth, we will take captive, divide the goods of the Wallachians, Armenians, and Greeks, and go beyond the Dniester to the land of the Sultan."

  Krychinski and Adurovich had lived as nomads among the wildest hordes for a long time, had robbed with them, and grown wild altogether; their eyes lighted up therefore.

  "Thanks to you," said Krychinski, "we were admitted to this place, which God now gives to us."

  "Did Novoveski make no opposition?" asked Azya.

  "Novoveski knew that we were passing over to the Commonwealth, and knew that you were coming to meet us; he looks on us as his men, because he looked on you as his man."

  "We remained on the Moldavian bank," put in Adurovich; "but Krychinski and I went as guests to him. He received us as nobles, for he said: 'By your present acts you extinguish former offence; and since the hetman forgives you on Azya's security, 'tis not proper for me to look askance at you.' He even wished us to enter the town; but we said: 'We will not till Azya, Tugai Bey's son, brings the hetman's permission.' But when he was going away he gave us another feast, and begged us to watch over the town."

  "At that feast," added Krychinski, "we saw his father, and the old woman who is searching for her captive husband, and that young lady whom Novoveski intends to marry."

  "Ah!" said Azya, "I did not think that they were all here, and I brought Panna Novoveski."

  He clapped his hands; Halim appeared at once, and Azya said to him: "When my men see the flames in the place, let them fall on those soldiers in the fortalice, and cut their throats; let them bind the women and the old noble, and guard them till I give the order."

  He turned to Krychinski and Adurovich,—

  "I will not assist myself, for I am weak; still, I will mount my horse and look on. But, dear comrades, begin, begin!"

  Krychinski and Adurovich rushed through the doorway at once. Azya went out after them, and gave command to lead a horse to him; then he rode to the stockade to look from the gate of the high fortalice on what would happen in the town.

  Many of his men had begun to climb the wall to look through the stockade and sate their eyes with the sight of the slaughter. Those of Novoveski's soldiers who had not gone to the steppe, seeing the Lithuanian Tartars assembling, and thinking there was something to look at in the town, mixed wit
h them without a shadow of fear or suspicion. Moreover, there were barely twenty of those soldiers; the rest were dispersed in the dram-shops.

  Meanwhile the bands of Krychinski and Adurovich scattered through the place in the twinkle of an eye. The men in those bands were almost exclusively Lithuanian Tartars and Cheremis, therefore former inhabitants of the Commonwealth, for the greater part nobles; but since they had left its borders long before, during that time of wandering they had become much like wild Tartars. Their former clothing had gone to pieces, and they were dressed in sheepskin coats with the wool outside. These coats they wore next to their bodies, which were embrowned from the winds of the steppe and from the smoke of fires; but their weapons were better than those of wild Tartars,—all had sabres, all had bows seasoned in fire, and many had muskets. Their faces expressed the same cruelty and thirst for blood as those of their Dobrudja, Belgrod, or Crimean brethren.

  Now scattering through the town, they began to run about in various directions, shouting shrilly, as if wishing by those shouts to encourage one another, and excite one another to slaughter and plunder. But though many of them had put knives in their mouths in Tartar fashion, the people of the place, composed as in Yampol of Wallachians, Armenians, Greeks, and partly of Tartar merchants, looked on them without any distrust. The shops were open; the merchants, sitting in front of their shops in Turkish fashion on benches, slipped their beads through their fingers. The cries of the Lithuanian Tartars merely caused men to look at them with curiosity, thinking that they were playing some game.

  But all at once smoke rose from the corners of the market square, and from the mouth of all the Tartars came a howling so terrible that pale fear seized the Wallachians, Armenians, and Greeks, and all their wives and children.

  Straightway a shower of arrows rained on the peaceful inhabitants. Their cries, the noise of doors and windows closed in a hurry, were mingled with the tramp of horses and the howling of the plunderers.