King Stakh's Wild Hunt
Page 20
And they walked away from the tree.
I heard Pacuk pronouncing in his bass voice:
“Never mind, we'll soon visit this one, too.”
I slipped down from the tree without making any noise and moved on after them. My feet stepped noiselessly on the grass and here and there I again crept.
And, of course, again I turned out to be a fool, having lost sight of the fact that they had horses. They hid behind the crests of the shrubbery and I in fear of running up against them, slowed my steps. The following instant I heard the tramp of horses' hoofs.
When I came out onto the road, in the distance I saw two horsemen driving their horses madly southwestward away from Raman's cross.
My thoughts were sad ones: I had learned that they were hunting Janoŭskaja and me, that no mercy need be expected, that I had let two bandits make their escape, and also that I had been so cruelly mistaken as to Bierman. I was convinced that his was a suspicious character: he had opened a letter addressed to me, and for some reason or other went to this dreadful place where he met his death. In itself the fact of this death pushed into the background the rest of his sins from me. But I had learned a great deal from the conversation that I had overheard and, first and foremost, now I knew one of the Wild Hunt. The story about the burnt haysacks gave him away. The haystacks that had been burnt had belonged to Mark Stachievič. I had seen him at the drunken revel at Dubatoŭk's place. And it was this man who had been Varona's second. Well, let's say I had been mistaken as to Bierman, but there's no mistake, it seems to me, about Va-rona. And he shall be mine. Only now greater determination is necessary.
And late in the evening King Stach's Wild Hunt appeared again. Again it howled, wailed, cried, its voice an inmuhan voice:
“Raman of the last generation, come out! We have come. We shall put an end to all! Then we shall rest. Raman! Raman!”
And again, lying hidden in the bushes at the entrance, I shot at the flying shadows of horsemen that flashed by at the end of the lane lit up by a misty moon. When I shot the first time, the horses threw themselves into the thicket and disappeared, as if they had never even been. It resembled a horrible dream…
It was necessary to put an end to things. I recalled Mark Stachievič's words spoken beneath the tree, concerning Raman's promise that after his death he would give away the murderer, and I thought that Raman might have left some clue in the house or at the place of his death. A clue that even Ryhor's vigilant eye had overlooked.
And when Ryhor came we hurried together to the place where Raman had been murdered. I am not a bad walker, but I could hardly keep up with this leggy figure. It might have seemed, looking at him, that Ryhor was walking slowly, but his movements were measured, and his feet he placed not as ordinary people do, but with his toes turned inward: all born hunters walk that way. By the way, it has been observed that this makes every step approximately one inch longer. Along the way I told him about the conversation between Mark Stachievič and some Pacuk.
“Varona's men,” Ryhor angrily growled. And then added: “But we had thought that ‘Likol’ is the beginning of a surname. You, sir, hadn't asked the right way. ‘Likol’ is evidently a nickname. You must ask Miss Janoŭskaja who is called that. If Śvieciłovič knew this nickname and perhaps, even, Bierman, it means that she must also know it.”
“I asked her.”
“You asked her about a surname, said that it was its beginning, but not that it's a nickname.”
In this way we came to the well-known place which I have twice described, the place where Nadzieja Ramanaŭna's father had perished. We sought all over in the dry grass, although it was stupid to look for anything in it after two years. And finally we came up to a place where there was a precipice, not a large one, over the quagmire.
Over the abyss a rather small stump met our sight sticking out from the earth, the remnant of the trunk of a tree that had grown there long ago, roots spreading throughout the abyss like mighty snakes, roots reaching downwards into the quagmire, as if there to quench their thirst, roots simply hanging in the air.
I asked Ryhor to recall whether Raman's hands had been visible over the quagmire.
Ryhor's eyes lowering, he was remembering:
“Yes, they were. The right one was even stretched out, he must have wanted to catch hold of the roots, but couldn't reach them.”
“But perhaps he simply threw something there where a hole is visible under the roots?”
“Let's look.”
And holding onto the roots, and breaking our finger-nails, we let ourselves down almost into the very mire, hardly able to hold onto the small slippery ledges of the steep slope. A hole did indeed turn out to be under the roots, but there was nothing in it.
I was about to climb up to the top, but Ryhor stopped me:
“Stupid we are. If there really was something here, then it is already under a layer of silt. He could have thrown something, but you know, two years have passed, the earth there in the hole will have crumbled and buried it.”
We began scratching the caked silt with our fingers, emptying it out of the hole, and — believe it or not, — soon my fingers hit on something hard. In the palm of my hand lay a cigarette-case made of maple wood. There was nothing else in the hole.
We climbed out and carefully wiped off from the cigarette-case the reddish silt mixed with clay. In the cigarette-case lay a piece of white cloth which Raman had evidently torn out from his shirt with his teeth. And on this little rag hardly decipherable reddish letters: “Varona mur…”
I shrugged my shoulders. The devil knows what this meant! Either evidence that Varona killed Raman, or a request to Varona to kill someone. Ryhor was looking at me.
“Well, so now it's clear, Mr. Andrej. Varona drove him here. Tomorrow we shall take him.”
“Why tomorrow? He may come today even.”
“Today is Friday. You, sir, have forgotten this. People say: ‘Look for the cut-throat in the church.’ Really too holy and godly. They kill with the name of the Holy Trinity on their lips. They will come tomorrow because they've lost all patience. They have got to get rid of you.” He became silent, a harsh flame blazed in his eyes. “Tomorrow, at last, I'll bring the mužyks. With pitchforks. And we'll give you one, too. If you're with us, then you're with us to the end. We'll lie in wait at the broken-down cross. And all of them we'll finish off, all of them. To the very roots, the devil's seed.”
We went together to Marsh Firs and there we learned that Miss Nadzieja was not alone. Mr. Haraburda was with her. Janoŭskaja had been avoiding me lately, and when we met she would turn her eyes away, eyes that had grown dark and were as sad as autumn water.
Therefore I asked the housekeeper to call her out into the lower hall where Ryhor was somberly looking at St. Yuri, himself as powerful and tall as the statue. Janoŭskaja came and Ryhor, ashamed of his footprints all over the floor, was hiding his feet behind an armchair. But his voice when he addressed her was as formerly, rough, though somewhere deep down within him, something trembled.
“Listen, clever Miss. We have found King Stach. It's Varona. Give me a pair of guns. Tomorrow we'll put an end to him.”
“And by the way,” I said, “I was mistaken when I asked you whether you knew a person whose surname began with ‘Likol’. Now I want to ask you whether you know a person whose nickname is Likol, simply Likol. He is the most dangerous man in the gang, perhaps its leader even.”
“No!” she screamed suddenly, her hands clutching at her breast. Her eyes widened, frozen with horror. “No! No!”
“Who is he?” Ryhor asked darkly.
“Be merciful! Have pity on me! That's impossible… He is so kind-hearted and tender. He used to hold Śvieciłovič and me on his knees. Our childish tongues at that time couldn't pronounce his name, we distorted it and that gave birth to the nickname by which we called him only among ourselves. Few people knew this.”
“Who is he?” adamantly repeated Ryhor moving stone jaws.
“Mr. Likol… Mr. Ryhor Dubatoŭk.”
I was horror-stricken to the very heart. Dumbfounded!
“Impossible! Such a good man! And, most important, of what benefit is it to him? After all, he's not an heir!”
And my memory obligingly reminded me of the words of one of the scoundrels under the tree: “He's in love with antiquity.” And even the undeciphered “…ly ma…” in the letter to Śvieciłovič suddenly turned naturally into Dubatoŭk's favourite byword: “Holy martyrs! What's going on here in this world!”
I wiped my eyes driving off my confusion.
Like lightning the solution flashed through my mind.
“Wait here, Nadzieja Ramanaŭna. And Ryhor, you wait, too. I'll go to Mr. Haraburda. Then I'll have to look through Bierman's things.”
Up the stairs I ran, my mind working in two directions. Firstly: Dubatoŭk might have arranged matters with Bierman (why had he killed him?) Secondly: Haraburda also might have been dependent on Dubatoŭk.
When I opened the door, an elderly gentleman with Homeric haunches, got out from his armchair to meet me. He looked at my determined face in surprise. “Excuse me, Mr. Haraburda,” I flung at him sharply, “I must put a question to you concerning your relations with Mr. Dubatoŭk: why did you permit this man to order you about?”
He had the look of a thief caught in the act of committing a crime. His low forehead reddened, his eyes began to wander. However, from the look on my face, he probably understood that I was in no mood for joking.
“What can one do… Promissory notes…” he muttered.
“You gave Mr. Dubatoŭk promissory notes secured by Janoŭskaja's estate, which does not belong to you?”
And again I struck home aiming at the sky.
“It was such a miserly sum. Only 3,000 roubles. The kennel requires so much.”
Things were beginning to fall into their places. Dubatoŭk's monstrous plan gradually became clear.
“According to Raman Janoŭski's will,” he mumbled, removing something from his morning-coat with trembling fingers, “such a substitution was established. Janoŭskaja's children receive the inheritance…” and he looked at me pitifully in the eyes. “There won't be any. She'll die, you know… She'll die soon. After her — her husband. But she is mad, who will marry her?.. Then the next step — the last of the Janoŭskis. But there aren't any, after Śvieciłovič's death — none. I am Janoŭskaja's relative in the female line. If there aren't any children or a husband — the castle is mine.” And he began to whimper: “But how could I wait? I've so many promissory notes. I'm such an unfortunate person. Mr. Ryhor has bought up most of my notes. And in addition gave 3,000 roubles. Now he'll be the owner here.”
“Listen to me,” speaking through set teeth, “there was, is, and will be only one owner here, Miss Nadzieja Janoŭskaja.”
“I laid no hope on receiving an inheritance. Janoŭskaja could get married. So I gave him a promissory note, its security being the castle.”
“So! You lack both shame and a conscience. You probably do not even know what they are. But don't you really know that from the financial aspect this act is not valid? That it's criminal?”
“No, I don't. I was glad.”
“But you know, don't you, that you drove Dubatoŭk into committing a terrible crime, a crime for which there is no word even in man's language? Of what is the poor girl guilty that you decided to deprive her of her life?”
“I suspected that it was a crime,” he babbled, “but my kennel, my house…”
“You lousy thing! I don't want to dirty my hands on you. The provincial court will busy itself with you. And in the meantime, on my own authority, I'll put you in the dungeon of this house for a week, so you won't be able to warn the other rascals.”
He began to whimper and whine:
“That's coercion.”
“It's for you, is it, to speak of coercion? You villain! It's for you, is it, to appeal to the law?” I flung at him. “What do you know about that? You who lick people's boots!”
I called Ryhor, and he pushed Haraburda into the dungeon, under the central part of the building where there weren't any windows.
An iron door thundered behind him.
Chapter The Sixteenth
The small light of a candle loomed somewhere in the distance behind dark window-panes. When I lifted my eyes, I saw close by the reflection of my face in sharp shadows.
I was looking through Bierman's papers. It still seemed to me that I might find something of interest in them. Bierman was too complicated a character to have lived the life of a foolish sheep.
And so, here I was with the consent of the mistress. I had taken out all the papers from the secretaire and put them on the table, also all the books, letters and documents, and I sat, sneezing from the thick layer of dust on these relics.
There was little of interest, however, in them. I came across a letter from Bierman's mother, in which she asked for help, and the rough draft of his answer, where he wrote that he was supporting his brother, that now his brother didn't interfere with his mother living as she liked, and as for the rest — they were quits. Strange! What brother, where is he now?
I dug out something resembling a diary in which next to monetary expenditures and rather clever remarks on Belarusian history, I found also Bierman's discourses such as these:
“The Northwest Territory as a concept is a fiction. The reason for this possibly lies in the fact that it serves with its blood and brain the idea of the universe as a whole, but not as of five provinces, that it pays off all debts and obligations, and that it is preparing a new Messiah in its very depths for the salvation of mankind, and therefore its lot is to suffer. This, however, does not refer to those who are its best representatives, people possessing energy, strength and an aristocratic spirit.”
“Well, just take a look, with the spirit of a knight, a strong man in torn pants,” I muttered.
“My only love is my brother. At times it seems to me that all other people are only caricatures of him and there is need of a person who would remake everybody in his likeness. People must be creatures of darkness. Animal beauty appears more clearly in their organisms, a beauty that we must guard and love. Then isn't the only difference between the genius and the idiot the fig-leaf, which man himself revised? Biełarecki's mediocrity irritates me, and, by God, it would be better for him if he disappeared, and the sooner the better.”
And yet another note:
“Money is the emanation of human authority over a herd of others (regretfully so!). We should have learned to perform castration of the brains of all those who do not deserve the life of a conscious being. And the best should be given boundless happiness, for such a thing as justice is not foreseen by nature itself. This applies also to me. I need peace, which we have here more than anything else, and money in order to mature the idea for the sake of which I appeared in the world, the idea of splendid and exceptional injustice. And it seems to me that the first step might be the victory over that towards which my body is striving and which, however, it's necessary to overcome, the desire for the mistress of Marsh Firs. She is anyway condemned by blind fate to be done away with — the curse on her is being fulfilled by the appearance of the Wild Hunt at the walls of the castle. Though she is stronger than I had thought: she hasn't lost her mind yet. King Stach is weak, and I am ordained to correct his mistakes. I am, nevertheless, jealous of all young men and especially of this Biełarecki. I shot at him yesterday, but was forced to retreat. I shoot badly.”
The next sheet:
“It is possible that if I fulfilled the role of God's will, of his highest design (such as has been known to happen with ordinary mortals) the evil spirits will leave this place and I shall remain the master here. I convinvced Biełarecki that the chief danger lies in the Hunt. But what danger can there be in apparitions? Quite another matter the Little Man
.”
“Gold, gold! Thousands of panegyrics could be sung to your power over people's souls. You are everything: the baby's diaper, the girl's body that is bought, friendship, love and power, the brain of the greatest geniuses, even the decent hole in the earth. And I will achieve all this.”
I crumpled the paper and squeezed my fingers until they ached.
“Abomination!”
And suddenly my hand came across a sheet of parchment folded in four among piles of paper. I unfolded the sheet on my knees and could only shake my head: it was the plan of Marsh Firs, a plan of the sixteenth century. And in this plan four listening channels were clearly indicated in the walls. Four! But they were so hidden in the plafonds that to find them was simply impossible. One of them, by the way, led from the dungeons in the castle to the room near the library (probably in orded to overhear prisoners' conversations), and the second one connected the library, the now abandoned servants' rooms on the first floor and — the room in which Janoŭskaja lived. The two others remained unknown to me: they opened into the corridor where were located the rooms belonging to Janoŭskaja and myself, but where they led to had been carefully rubbed out.
The villain had found the plan in the archive and had hidden it.
There turned out to be some more interesting things in the plan. In the outer wall of the castle a space appeared, a narrow passage and three small cells of some kind were indicated. And where I had once torn off a board in the boarded up room.
I swore as never before in my life. Many unpleasant things might have been avoided if I had thoroughly knocked at the walls covered with panels. But it wasn't too late even now. I grabbed the candle, glanced at the clock (half past ten) and ran as quickly as I could to my corridor.
I knocked half an hour probably, before I hit on a place which answered to my knocking with a resonant sound as if I were knocking on the bottom of a barrel. I looked for a place in the panel that I could catch onto and tear off at least a part of it, but in vain. Then I saw some light scratches on it made with some sharp thing. Therefore I got a folding-knife and began to prod it into the hardly noticeable cracks between the panels. With a blade of the knife I managed quite soon to find something that gave way. I pressed harder — the panel began to squeak and to turn round slowly, forming a narrow slit. I looked at the reverse side of the panel at the place in which I had stuck the knife. A hollow board was there and to open the manhole from the inside was impossible. I had gone down about 15 steps, but the door behind my back began to squeak pitifully, and I hurried upstairs, and managed just in time to hold it back with my foot so that it shouldn't shut. To remain in a rat-hole alone under the threat of sitting there till Doomsday with a candle-end was foolhardy.