With Fire and Sword

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  The chief stopped, for his voice broke in his throat, and he began to groan. Helena’s face grew red and pale by turns. The more of measureless love there was in Bogun’s words, the greater the gulf which opened before her, bottomless, and without hope of rescue.

  The Cossack rested awhile, regained self-command, and continued,—

  “Ask what you like. See how the room is decorated! This is mine; this is booty from Bar, which I brought for you on six horses. Ask what you wish,—yellow gold, shining garments, bright jewels, willing slaves. I am rich, I have enough of my own; and Hmelnitski will not spare treasures on me, and Krívonos will not spare them. You will be like Princess Vishnyevetski. I will win castles for you, give you half the Ukraine; for though I am a Cossack, not a noble, I am a bunchuk ataman. Under me are ten thousand men,—more than Prince Yeremi commands. Ask what you like, only not to flee from me,—only stay with me and love me, O my dove!”

  The princess raised herself on the cushions. She was very pale, but her sweet and marvellous face expressed such unbroken will, pride, and power that the dove was most like an eagle at that moment.

  “If you are waiting for my answer,” said she, “then know that if I had even a lifetime to groan out in captivity with you, never, never should I love you, God be my aid!”

  Bogun struggled with himself a moment. “Do not tell me such things,” said he, with a hoarse voice.

  “Do not speak to me of your love; it brings me shame and offence. I am not for you.”

  The chief rose. “And for whom, then, are you, Princess Kurtsevichovna? And whose would you have been in Bar but for me?”

  “Whoso saves my life to give me shame and captivity is my enemy, not my friend.”

  “And do you suppose that the peasants would have killed you? The thought is terrible.”

  “The knife would have killed me, but you wrenched it from me.”

  “And I will not give it up, for you must be mine,” burst out the Cossack.

  “Never! I prefer death.”

  “You must and will be.”

  “Never!”

  “Well, if you were not wounded, after what you have told me, I should send my Cossacks to Rashkoff to-day and have a monk brought here, and to-morrow I should be your husband. Then what? It is a sin not to love your husband and fondle him. Ai! you high mighty lady, the love of a Cossack is an offence, an anger to you. And who are you that I am for you a peasant? Where are your castles and boyars and troops? At what are you angry,—at what are you offended? I took you in war; you are a captive. If I were a peasant, I should teach you reason on the white shoulders with the whip, and without a priest would have enough of your beauty,—if I were a peasant, not a knight!”

  “Angels of heaven, save me!” whispered the princess.

  But in the mean while greater and greater fury rose to the face of Bogun, and anger seized him by the hair.

  “I know,” said he, “why you’re offended, why you resist me. You preserve for another your maiden modesty. But in vain, as I live, as I am a Cossack! Nakedness[15] the noble! The insincere, miserable Pole barely saw you, merely turned with you in the dance,—death to him!—and took you captive altogether. Then let the Cossack suffer, break his head. But I will reach this Pole, and I will order him torn out of his skin, will nail him up. Do you know that Hmelnitski is marching on the Poles, and I go with him; and I will find your dove even under the ground, and when I return I will throw his head at your feet as a present.”

  Helena did not hear the last words of the ataman. Pain, anger, wounds, emotion, terror, took her strength; an immeasurable weakness came upon all her limbs, her eyes and her thoughts grew dark, and she fell into a swoon.

  The chief stood some time, pale from anger, with foam on his lips. Then he saw the lifeless head hanging back powerless, and from his lips went out a roar almost unearthly. “It is all over with her! Horpyna! Horpyna!” And he threw himself on the floor.

  The giantess rushed into the room with all speed. “What is the matter?”

  “Help! help!” cried Bogun. “I have killed her, my soul, my light!”

  “What! Did you scold her?”

  “I have killed her, I have killed her!” groaned he; and he wrung his hands over his head.

  But Horpyna, approaching the princess, soon discovered that it was not death, but a deep faint, and putting Bogun outside the door, began to assist her. The princess opened her eyes after a time.

  “My dear, there is nothing the matter with you,” said the enchantress. “You were frightened at him, I see, and darkness settled on you; but the darkness will pass and health will come. You are like a nut, my girl; you have long to live in the world and enjoy happiness.”

  “Who are you?” asked the princess, with a weak voice.

  “I? Your servant, for he so ordered it.”

  “Where am I?”

  “In the Devil’s Glen. A pure wilderness here; you will see no one but him.”

  “Do you live here?”

  “My farm is here. I am Dontsovna. My brother is a colonel under Bogun; he leads young heroes, and I stay here, and will care for you in this golden chamber. From a cottage it has become a bower, so that light gleams from it. He has brought all this for you.”

  Helena looked at the lively face of the young woman, and it seemed to her full of sincerity.

  “But will you be good to me?”

  The white teeth of the young witch gleamed in a smile. “I shall; why shouldn’t I? But do you be good also to the ataman. He is a falcon, he is a glorious hero, he will—”

  Here the witch bent to the ear of Helena, whispered something, then burst into laughter.

  “Be off!” screamed the princess.

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  Two days later in the morning Horpyna sat with Bogun under the willow near the mill-wheel, and looked at the water foaming on it.

  “You will be careful of her, you will guard her, you will not let your eye off her, so that she shall never leave the glen.”

  “The glen has a narrow neck near the river, but there is space enough here. Order the neck to be filled with stones, and we shall be as if in the bottom of a jug. When I need to go out I shall find a way.”

  “How do you live here?”

  “Cheremís plants corn under the cliffs, cultivates grapes, and snares wild fowl. With what you have brought she will want nothing unless bird’s milk. Have no fear! She will not leave the glen, and no one will know of her unless your men say she is here.”

  “I have made them swear silence. They are faithful fellows; they will say nothing, even if straps were torn from their skin. But you said yourself that people came here to you as to a soothsayer.”

  “Sometimes they come from Rashkoff, and sometimes when they hear of me they come from God knows what places. But they stay at the river; no one enters the glen, for they are afraid. You saw the bones. These were people who wished to enter; their bones are lying around.”

  “Did you kill them?”

  “Whoever killed them, killed them! Those in search of soothsaying wait at the opening of the glen and I go to the wheel. What I see in the water, I tell them. I shall examine for you directly, but I don’t know whether anything will be seen, for it does not always appear.”

  “If only you see nothing bad!”

  “If I see something bad, you will not go; and in that case it would be better not to go.”

  “I must. Hmelnitski sent me a letter to Bar to return, and Krívonos ordered me. The Poles are marching on us now with great forces, so we must concentrate.”

  “When will you come back?”

  “I know not. There will be a great battle such as has not been yet. Either death to us or to the Poles. If they beat us, I will hide here; if we are victorious, I will come for my cuckoo and take her to Kieff.”

  “And if you
perish?”

  “Being a witch, it is for you to tell.”

  “But if you perish?”

  “Once my mother bore me.”

  “Oh, pshaw! But what shall I do with the girl,—twist her neck, or how?”

  “But touch her with your hand and I will have you drawn on a stake with oxen.” The chief fell into gloomy thought. “If I perish, tell her to forgive me.”

  “Ah, she is a thankless Pole that for such love she does not love. If I were wooed in that way, I should not resist you.” Saying this, Horpyna nudged the chief in the side twice, showing all her teeth in laughter.

  “Go to the devil!” said the Cossack.

  “Oh, be quiet! I know that you are not for me.”

  Bogun looked into the foaming water on the wheel as if he wished himself to soothsay.

  “Horpyna!” said he after a while.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “When I have gone will she be sorry for me?”

  “If you are not willing to constrain her in Cossack fashion, then perhaps it is better for you to go.”

  “I will not, I cannot, I dare not. I know that she would die.”

  “Then maybe it is better for you to go. While she sees you she will not wish to know you, but when she has been a couple of months with me and Cheremís, you will be dearer to her.”

  “If she were well, I know what I should do. I should bring a priest from Rashkoff and have a marriage celebrated; but now I am afraid, for if she were frightened, she would die. You have seen yourself.”

  “Leave us in peace. What do you want of a priest and a marriage? You are not a real Cossack. I want neither Pole nor Russian priest here. There are Dobrudja Tartars in Rashkoff, you want to get them on our shoulders too; and if you should bring them, how much of the princess would you see? What has got into your head? Go your way and come back.”

  “But look in the water and tell me what you see. Tell the truth and don’t lie, even if you should see me dead.”

  Dontsovna approached the mill-stream and raised a gate holding back the water at the fall. All at once the swift current rushed with redoubled force, the wheel began to turn more swiftly, until at last it was covered with liquid dust; the foam, beaten fine, rolled under the wheel like boiling water.

  The witch bent her eyes into the boiling mass and seizing the tresses near her ears, began to cry,—

  “I call! I call! Appear! In the oaken wheel, in the white foam, in the clear mist, whether evil, whether good, appear!”

  Bogun approached and sat at her side. His face denoted fear and feverish curiosity.

  “I see!” screamed the witch.

  “What do you see?”

  “The death of my brother. Two bullocks are drawing him on a stake.”

  “To the devil with your brother!” muttered Bogun, who wished to know something else.

  For a time was heard only the thunder of the wheel whirling around in fury.

  “Blue is my brother’s head, how blue! The ravens are tearing it,” said the witch.

  “What else do you see?”

  “Nothing. Oh, how blue! I call! I call! In the oaken wheel, in the white foam, in the clear mist, appear! I see—”

  “What?”

  “A battle! The Poles are fleeing before the Cossacks.”

  “And I am pursuing?”

  “I see you too. You encounter a little knight. Hur! hur! hur! Be on your guard against the little knight.”

  “And the princess?”

  “She is not there. I see you again, and with you some one who is betraying you,—your false friend.”

  Bogun was devouring with his eyes at one instant the foam, at another Horpyna; and at the same time he worked with his brain to aid the soothsaying.

  “What friend?”

  “I don’t see. I don’t know whether old or young.”

  “Old, he must be old!”

  “Maybe he is old!”

  “I know who he is. He has betrayed me once already. An old noble with a blue beard and a white eye. Death to him! But he is not a friend of mine.”

  “He is lying in wait for you, I see again—Stop! the princess is here too; she is in a crown, a white dress, above her a hawk.”

  “That is I.”

  “Maybe it is. A hawk—or a falcon? A hawk!”

  “That is I.”

  “Wait! All has vanished. In the oaken wheel, in the white foam— Oh! oh! many soldiers, many Cossacks, oh, many, like trees in the forest or thistles in the steppes; and you are above all,—they are bearing three bunchuk standards before you.”

  “And the princess is with me?”

  “She is not; you are in the camp.”

  The wheel roared till the whole mill trembled.

  “Oh, how much blood, how much blood! how many corpses,—wolves above them, ravens above them, plague above them! Corpses and corpses,—far away nothing but corpses, nothing to be seen but blood!”

  Suddenly a breath of wind whirled the mist from the wheel; and at the same time higher up above the mill appeared the deformed Cheremís with a bundle of wood on his shoulders.

  “Cheremís, let down the sluice!” cried the girl.

  When she had said this she went to wash her hands and face in the stream, and the dwarf stopped the water at once.

  Bogun sat in thought. He was roused first by the coming of Horpyna.

  “You saw nothing more?” he asked.

  “What appeared, appeared; I shall see nothing more.”

  “And you are not lying?”

  “By my brother’s head, I spoke the truth. They were empaling him, drawing him on with oxen. I grieve for him. But death is written not for him alone. Oh, what bodies appeared! Never have I seen so many; there will be a great war in the world.”

  “And you saw her with a hawk above her head?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was she in a wreath?”

  “In a wreath and a white robe.”

  “And how do you know that that hawk was I? I spoke to you of that young Polish noble,—maybe it was he?”

  The girl wrinkled her brows and grew thoughtful. “No,” said she after a while, shaking her head; “if it had been the Pole, it would have been an eagle.”

  “Glory to God, glory to God! I will go now to the Cossacks to prepare the horses for the road. We go to-night.”

  “So you are going surely?”

  “Hmelnitski has ordered, and Krívonos too. You know well that there will be a great war, for I read the same in Bar in a letter from Hmelnitski.”

  Bogun in reality could not read, but he was ashamed of it; he did not wish to pass for illiterate.

  “Then go!” said the witch. “You are lucky,—you will be hetman. I saw three bunchuks above you as I see these fingers.”