The Deluge. Vol. 1

"Oh! who has gone through them? Where one ends another begins, and God knows where they are not; I have never been in that place."

"Very well!" said Soroka.

Then he ordered the man to go back to the cabin, and followed himself.

On the way he was pondering over what he should do, and hesitated. On one hand the wish came to him to take the horses while the cabin-dwellers were gone, and flee with this plunder. The booty was precious, and the horses pleased the old soldier's heart greatly; but after a while he overcame the temptation. To take them was easy, but what to do further. Swamps all around, one egress, – how hit upon that? Chance had served him once, but perhaps it would not a second time. To follow the trail of hoofs was useless, for the cabin-dwellers had surely wit enough to make by design false and treacherous trails leading straight into quagmires. Soroka knew clearly the methods of men who steal horses, and of those who take booty.

He thought awhile, therefore, and meditated; all at once he struck his head with his fist, -

"I am a fool!" muttered he. "I'll take the fellow on a rope, and make him lead me to the highway."

Barely had he uttered the last word when he shuddered, "To the highway? But that prince will be there, and pursuit. To lose fifteen horses!" said the old fox to himself, with as much sorrow as if he had cared for the beasts from their colthood. "It must be that our fortune is ended. We must stay in the cabin till Pan Kmita recovers, – stay with consent of the owners or without their consent; and what will come later, that is work for the colonel's head."

Thus meditating, he returned to the cabin. The watchful soldiers were standing at the door, and though they saw a lantern shining in the dark from a distance, – the same lantern with which Soroka and the pitch-maker had gone out, – still they forced them to tell who they were before they let them enter the cabin. Soroka ordered his soldiers to change the watch about midnight, and threw himself down on the plank bed beside Kmita.

It had become quiet in the cabin; only the crickets raised their usual music in the adjoining closet, and the mice gnawed from moment to moment among the rubbish piled up there. The sick man woke at intervals and seemed to have dreams in his fever, for to Soroka's ears came the disconnected words, -

"Gracious king, pardon-Those men are traitors-I will tell all their secrets-The Commonwealth is a red cloth-Well, I have you, worthy prince-Hold him! – Gracious king, this way, for there is treason!"

Soroka rose on the bed and listened; but the sick man, when he had screamed once and a second time, fell asleep, and then woke and cried, -

"Olenka, Olenka, be not angry!"

About midnight he grew perfectly calm and slept soundly. Soroka also began to slumber; but soon a gentle knocking at the door of the cabin roused him.

The watchful soldier opened his eyes at once, and springing to his feet went out.

"But what is the matter?" asked he.

"Sergeant, the pitch-maker has escaped."

"A hundred devils! he'll bring robbers to us right away."

"Who was watching him?"

"Biloüs."

"I went with him to water our horses," said Biloüs, explaining. "I ordered him to draw the water, and held the horses myself."

"And what? Did he jump into the well?"

"No, Sergeant, but between the logs, of which there are many near the well, and into the stump-holes. I let the horses go; for though they scattered there are others here, and sprang after him, but I fell into the first hole. It was night, – dark; the scoundrel knows the place, and ran away. May the pest strike him!"

"He will bring those devils here to us, – he'll bring them. May the thunderbolts split him!"

The sergeant stopped, but after a while said, -

"We will not lie down; we must watch till morning. Any moment a crowd may come."

And giving an example to the others, he took his place on the threshold of the cabin with a musket in his hand. The soldiers sat near him talking in an undertone, listening sometimes to learn if in the night sounds of the pine-woods the tramp and snort of coming horses could reach them.

It was a moonlight night, and calm, but noisy. In the forest depths life was seething. It was the season of mating; therefore the wilderness thundered with terrible bellowing of stags. These sounds, short, hoarse, full of anger and rage, were heard round about in all parts of the forest, distant and near, – sometimes right there, as if a hundred yards from the cabin.

"If men come, they will bellow too, to mislead us," said Biloüs.

"Eh! they will not come to-night. Before the pitch-maker finds them 'twill be day," said the other soldiers.

"In the daytime, Sergeant, it would be well to examine the cabin and dig under the walls; for if robbers dwell here there must be treasures."

"The best treasures are in that stable," said Soroka, pointing with his finger to the shed.

"But we'll take them?"

"Ye are fools! there is no way out, – nothing but swamps all around."

"But we came in."

"God guided us. A living soul cannot come here or leave here without knowing the road."

"We will find it in the daytime."

"We shall not find it, for tracks are made everywhere purposely, and the trails are misleading. It was not right to let the man go."

"It is known that the highroad is a day's journey distant, and in that direction," said Biloüs.

Here he pointed with his finger to the eastern part of the forest.

"We will ride on till we pass through, – that's what we'll do! You think that you will be a lord when you touch the highway? Better the bullet of a robber here than a rope there."

"How is that, father?" asked Biloüs.

"They are surely looking for us there."

"Who, father?"

"The prince."

Soroka was suddenly silent; and after him were silent the others, as if seized with fear.

"Oi!" said Biloüs, at last. "It is bad here and bad there; though you twist, you can't turn."

"They have driven us poor devils into a net; here robbers, and there the prince," said another soldier.

"May the thunderbolts burn them there! I would rather have to do with a robber than with a wizard," added Biloüs; "for that prince is possessed, yes, possessed. Zavratynski could wrestle with a bear, and the prince took the sword from his hands as from a child. It can only be that he enchanted him, for I saw, too, that when he rushed at Vitkovski Boguslav grew up before the eyes to the size of a pine-tree. If he had not, I shouldn't have let him go alive."

"But you were a fool not to jump at him."

"What had I to do, Sergeant? I thought this way: he is sitting on the best horse; if he wishes, he will run away, but if he attacks me I shall not be able to defend myself, for with a wizard is a power not human! He becomes invisible to the eye or surrounds himself with dust-"