CHAPTER XL.
No one thought of searching for Tugai Bey's son; therefore he lay onthe ground until he recovered consciousness. When he had come to hissenses, 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 hediscovered that he was looking with only one eye, and badly with thatone. The other was either knocked out, or filled with blood.
Azya raised his hands to his face. His fingers found icicles of bloodstiff on his mustaches; his mouth too was full of blood which wassuffocating him so that he had to cough and spit it out a number oftimes; a terrible pain pierced his face at this spitting; he put hisfingers above his mustaches, but snatched them away with a groan ofsuffering.
Basia's blow had crushed the upper part of his nose, and injured hischeek-bone. He sat for a time without motion; then he began to lookaround with that eye in which some sight remained, and seeing a streakof snow in a cleft he crept up to it, seized a handful and applied itto his broken face.
This brought great relief straightway; and while the melting snowflowed down in red streaks over his mustaches, he collected anotherhandful and applied it again. Besides, he began to eat snow eagerly,and that also brought relief to him. After a time the immense weightwhich he felt on his head became so much lighter that he called to mindall that had happened. But at the first moment he felt neither rage,anger, nor despair; bodily pain had deadened all other feelings, andleft but one wish,--the wish to save himself quickly.
Azya, when he had eaten a number of handfuls more of snow, began tolook for his horse; the horse was not there; then he understood that ifhe did not wish to wait till his men came to look for him, he must goon foot. Supporting himself on the ground with his hands, he tried torise, but howled from pain and sat down again.
He sat perhaps an hour, and again began to make efforts. This time hesucceeded in so far that he rose, and, resting his shoulders againstthe cliff, was able to remain on his feet; but when he remembered thathe must leave the support and make one step, then a second and a thirdin the empty expanse, a feeling of weakness and fear seized him sofirmly that he almost sat down again.
Still he mastered himself, drew his sabre, leaned on it, and pushedforward; he succeeded. After some steps he felt that his body and feetwere strong, that he had perfect command of them, only his head was, asit were, not his own, and like an enormous weight was swaying now tothe right, now to the left, now to the front. He had a feeling also asif he were carrying that head, shaky and too heavy, with extraordinarycare, and with extraordinary fear that he would drop it on the stonesand break it.
At times, too, the head turned him around, as if it wished him to go ina circle. At times it became dark in his one eye; then he supportedhimself with both hands on the sabre. The dizziness of his head passedaway gradually; but the pain increased always, and bored, as it were,into his forehead, into his eyes, into his whole head, till whining wasforced from his breast. The echoes of the rocks repeated his groans,and he went forward in that desert, bloody, terrible, more like avampire 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 afterhe lay down on skins, and for three days could see no one except theGreek barber[25] who dressed his wounds, and Halim, who assisted thebarber. Only on the fourth day did he regain his speech, and with itconsciousness of what had happened.
Straightway his feverish thoughts followed Basia. He saw her fleeingamong rocks and in wild places; she seemed to him a bird that wasflying away forever; he saw her nearing Hreptyoff, saw her in the armsof her husband, and at that sight a pain carried him away which wasmore savage than his wound, and with the pain sorrow, and with thesorrow shame for the defeat which he had suffered.
"She has fled, she has fled!" repeated he, continually; and ragestifled him so that at times presence of mind seemed to be leaving himagain.
"Woe!" answered he, when Halim tried to pacify him, and give assurancethat Basia could not escape pursuit; and he kicked the skins with whichthe old Tartar had covered him, and with his knife threatened him andthe Greek. He howled like a wild beast, and tried to spring up, wishingto fly himself to overtake her, to seize her, and then from anger andwild love stifle her with his own hands.
At times he was wandering in delirium, and summoned Halim to bring thehead of the little knight quickly, and to confine the commandant'swife, 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 lasthe fell into a deep sleep, and slept for twenty-four hours; when hewoke the fever had left him entirely, and he was able to see Krychinskiand Adurovich.
They were anxious, for they knew not what to do. The troops which hadgone out under young Novoveski were not to return, it is true, beforetwo weeks; but some unexpected event might hasten their coming, andthen it was necessary to know what position to take. It is true thatKrychinski and Adurovich were simply feigning a return to the serviceof the Commonwealth; but Azya was managing the whole affair: he alonecould give them directions what to do in emergency; he alone couldexplain on which side was the greatest profit, whether to return to thedominions of the Sultan or to pretend, or how long to pretend, thatthey were serving the Commonwealth. They both knew well that in the endof ends Azya intended to betray the Commonwealth; but they supposedthat he might command them to wait for the war before disclosing theirtreason, so as to betray most effectively. His indications were to be acommand for them; for he had put himself on them as a leader, as thehead 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. Witha bandaged face and only one eye, he was still weak, but his health wasrestored.
"I am sick," began he, at once. "The woman that I wished to take withme tore herself out of my hands, after wounding me with the butt of apistol. She was the wife of Volodyovski, the commandant; may pestilencefall 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 tospeak of what they ought to do.
"It is impossible to delay, or to defer the Sultan's service till warbegins," said Azya; "after what has happened with this woman they willnot 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. Thehandful of soldiers we will seize; the towns-people, who are subjectsof the Commonwealth, we will take captive, divide the goods of theWallachians, Armenians, and Greeks, and go beyond the Dniester to theland of the Sultan."
Krychinski and Adurovich had lived as nomads among the wildest hordesfor a long time, had robbed with them, and grown wild altogether; theireyes 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 knewthat you were coming to meet us; he looks on us as his men, because helooked on you as his man."
"We remained on the Moldavian bank," put in Adurovich; "but Krychinskiand I went as guests to him. He received us as nobles, for he said: 'Byyour present acts you extinguish former offence; and since the hetmanforgives you on Azya's security, 'tis not proper for me to look askanceat you.' He even wished us to enter the town; but we said: 'We will nottill Azya, Tugai Bey's son, brings the hetman's permission.' But whenhe was going away he gave us another feast, and begged us to watch overthe town."
"At that feast," added Krychinski, "we saw his father, and the oldwoman who is searching for her captive husband, and that young ladywhom Novoveski intends to marry."
"Ah!" said Azya, "I did not think that they were all here, and Ibrought 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 thosesoldiers in the fortalice, and cut their throats; let them bind thewomen 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 horseand look on. But, dear comrades, begin, begin!"
Krychinski and Adurovich rushed through the doorway at once. Azya wentout after them, and gave command to lead a horse to him; then he rodeto the stockade to look from the gate of the high fortalice on whatwould happen in the town.
Many of his men had begun to climb the wall to look through thestockade and sate their eyes with the sight of the slaughter. Those ofNovoveski's soldiers who had not gone to the steppe, seeing theLithuanian Tartars assembling, and thinking there was something to lookat in the town, mixed with them without a shadow of fear or suspicion.Moreover, there were barely twenty of those soldiers; the rest weredispersed in the dram-shops.
Meanwhile the bands of Krychinski and Adurovich scattered through theplace in the twinkle of an eye. The men in those bands were almostexclusively Lithuanian Tartars and Cheremis, therefore formerinhabitants of the Commonwealth, for the greater part nobles; but sincethey had left its borders long before, during that time of wanderingthey had become much like wild Tartars. Their former clothing had goneto pieces, and they were dressed in sheepskin coats with the wooloutside. These coats they wore next to their bodies, which wereembrowned from the winds of the steppe and from the smoke of fires; buttheir weapons were better than those of wild Tartars,--all had sabres,all had bows seasoned in fire, and many had muskets. Their facesexpressed the same cruelty and thirst for blood as those of theirDobrudja, Belgrod, or Crimean brethren.
Now scattering through the town, they began to run about in variousdirections, shouting shrilly, as if wishing by those shouts toencourage one another, and excite one another to slaughter and plunder.But though many of them had put knives in their mouths in Tartarfashion, the people of the place, composed as in Yampol of Wallachians,Armenians, Greeks, and partly of Tartar merchants, looked on themwithout any distrust. The shops were open; the merchants, sitting infront of their shops in Turkish fashion on benches, slipped their beadsthrough their fingers. The cries of the Lithuanian Tartars merelycaused men to look at them with curiosity, thinking that they wereplaying some game.
But all at once smoke rose from the corners of the market square, andfrom the mouth of all the Tartars came a howling so terrible that palefear seized the Wallachians, Armenians, and Greeks, and all their wivesand children.
Straightway a shower of arrows rained on the peaceful inhabitants.Their cries, the noise of doors and windows closed in a hurry, weremingled with the tramp of horses and the howling of the plunderers.
The market was covered with smoke. Cries of "Woe, woe!" were raised. Atthe same time the Tartars fell to breaking open shops and houses,dragging out terrified women by the hair; hurling into the streetfurniture, morocco, merchandise, beds from which feathers went up in acloud; the groans of slaughtered men were heard, lamentation, thehowling of dogs, the bellowing of cattle caught by fire in rearbuildings; red tongues of flame, visible even in the daytime on theblack rolls of smoke, were shooting higher and higher toward the sky.
In the fortalice Azya's cavalry-men hurled themselves at the verybeginning on the infantry, who were defenceless for the greater part.
There was no struggle whatever; a number of knives were buried in eachPolish breast without warning; then the heads of the unfortunates werecut off and borne to the hoofs of Azya's horse.
Tugai Bey's son permitted most of his men to join their brethren in thebloody work; but he himself stood and looked on.
Smoke hid the work of Krychinski and Adurovich; the odor of burnt fleshrose to the fortalice. The town was burning like a great pile, andsmoke covered the view; only at times in the smoke was heard the reportof a musket, like thunder in a cloud, or a fleeing man was seen, or acrowd of Tartars pursuing.
Azya stood still and looked on with delight in his heart; a stern smileparted his lips, under which the white teeth were gleaming: this smilewas the more savage because it was mingled with pain from the dryingwounds. Besides delight, pride, too, rose in the heart of Azya. He hadcast from his breast that burden of feigning, and for the first time hegave rein to his hatred, concealed for long years; now he felt that hewas himself, felt that he was the real Azya, the son of Tugai Bey. Butat the same time there rose in him a savage regret that Basia was notlooking at that fire, at that slaughter; that she could not see him inhis new occupation. He loved her, but a wild desire for revenge on herwas tearing him. "She ought to be standing right here by my horse,"thought he, "and I would hold her by the hair; she would grasp at myfeet, and then I would seize her and kiss her on the mouth, and shewould be mine, mine!--my slave!"
Only the hope that perhaps that detachment sent in pursuit, or thosewhich he left on the road, would bring her back, restrained him fromdespair. He clung to that hope as a drowning man to a plank, and thatgave him strength; he could not think of losing her, for he wasthinking too much of the moment in which he would find her and takeher.
He remained at the gate till the slaughtered town had grown still.Stillness came soon, for the bands of Krychinski and Adurovich numberedalmost as many heads as the town; therefore the burning outlasted thegroans of men and roared on till evening. Azya dismounted and went withslow steps to a spacious room in the middle of which sheepskins werespread; on these he sat and awaited the coming of the two captains.
They came soon, and with them the sotniks. Delight was on the faces ofall, for the booty had surpassed expectation; the town had grown muchsince the time of the peasant incursion, and was wealthy. They hadtaken about a hundred young women, and a crowd of children of ten yearsold and upward; these could be sold with profit in the markets of theEast. Old women, and children too small and unfit for the road, wereslaughtered. The hands of the Tartars were streaming with human blood,and their sheepskin coats had the odor of burning flesh. All took theirseats around Azya.
"Only a pile of glowing embers behind us," said Krychinski. "Before thecommand returns we might go to Yampol; there is as much wealth of everykind there as in Rashkoff,--perhaps more."
"No," answered Azya, "men of mine are in Yampol who will burn theplace; but it is time for us to go to the lands of the Khan and theSultan."
"At thy command! We will return with glory and booty," said thecaptains and the sergeants.
"There are still women here in the fortalice, and that noble who rearedme," said Azya. "A just reward belongs to them."
He clapped his hands and gave command to bring the prisoners.
They were brought without delay,--Pani Boski in tears; Zosia, pale as akerchief; Eva and her father. Old Pan Novoveski's hands and feet werebound with ropes. All were terrified, but still more astonished at whathad taken place. Eva was lost in conjectures as to what had become ofPani Volodyovski, and wondered why Azya had not shown himself. She, notknowing why there was slaughter in the town, nor why she and herfriends were bound as captives, concluded that it was a question ofcarrying her away; that Azya, not wishing in his pride to beg her handof her father, had fallen into a rage simply out of love for her, andhad determined to take her by violence. This was all terrible initself; but Eva, at least, was not trembling for her own life.
The prisoners did not recognize Azya, for his face was nearlyconcealed; but all the more did terror seize the knees of the women atthe first moment, for they judged that wild Tartars had in someincomprehensible manner destroyed the Lithuanian Tartars and gainedpossession of Rashkoff. But the sight of Krychinski and Adurovichconvinced them that they were still in the hands of Lithuanian Tartars.
They looked at one another some time in silence; at last old PanNovoveski ask
ed, with an uncertain but powerful voice,--
"In whose hands are we?"
Azya began to unwind the bandages from his head, and from beneath themhis face soon appeared, beautiful on a time, though wild, deformed nowforever, with a broken nose and a black and blue spot instead of aneye,--a face dreadful, collected in cold vengeance and with a smilelike convulsive contortions. He was silent for a moment, then fixed hisburning eye on the old man and said,--
"In mine,--in the hands of Tugai Bey's son."
But old Novoveski knew him before he spoke; and Eva also knew him,though the heart was straitened in her from terror and disgust at sightof that ghastly visage. The maiden covered her eyes with her unboundhands; and the noble, opening his mouth, began to blink withastonishment and repeat,--
"Azya! Azya!"
"Whom your lordship reared, to whom you were a father, and whose backstreamed with blood under your parental hand."
Blood rushed to the noble's head.
"Traitor," said he, "you shall answer for your deeds before a judge.Serpent! I have a son yet."
"And you have a daughter," answered Azya, "for whose sake you gavecommand to flog me to death; and this daughter I will give now to thelast of the horde, so that he may have service and pleasure from her."
"Leader, give her to me!" cried Adurovich, on a sudden.
"Azya! Azya!" cried Eva, throwing herself at his feet, "I havealways--"
But he kicked her away with one foot, and Adurovich seized her by thearms and began to drag her along the floor. Pan Novoveski from purplebecame blue; the ropes squeaked on his arms, as he twisted them, andfrom his mouth came unintelligible words. Azya rose from the skins andwent toward him, at first slowly, then more quickly, like a wild beastpreparing to bound on its prey. At last he came near, seized with thecontorted fingers of one hand the mustaches of old Novoveski, and withthe other fell to beating him without mercy on face and head.
A hoarse bellow was rent from his throat when the noble fell to thefloor; Azya knelt on Novoveski's breast, and suddenly the bright gleamof a knife shone in the room.
"Mercy! rescue!" screamed Eva. But Adurovich struck her on the head,and then put his broad hand on her mouth; meanwhile Azya was cuttingthe throat of Pan Novoveski.
The spectacle was so ghastly that it chilled even the breasts of theTartars; for Azya, with calculated cruelty, drew his knife slowlyacross the neck of the ill-fated noble, who gasped and choked awfully.From his open veins the blood spurted more and more violently on thehands of the murderer and flowed in a stream along the floor. Then therattling and gurgling ceased by degrees; finally air was wheezing inthe severed throat, and the feet of the dying man dug the floor inconvulsive quivers.
Azya rose; his eyes fell now on the pale and sweet face of Zosia Boski,who seemed dead, for she was hanging senseless on the arm of a Tartarwho was holding her, and he said,--
"I will keep this girl for myself, till I give her away or sell her."
Then he turned to the Tartars: "Now only let the pursuit return, and wewill go to the lands of the Sultan."
The pursuit returned two days later, but with empty hands. Tugai Bey'sson went, therefore, to the land of the Sultan with despair and rage inhis heart, leaving behind him a gray and bluish pile of ruins.
Pan Michael: An Historical Novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey Page 41