Part 39 (1/2)

In fact, day was breaking. The gloom was decreasing. The sky and earth were becoming gray; the air was growing pale; the tops of the trees and the bushes were becoming covered, as it were, with silver. The farther clumps began to disclose themselves, as if some one were raising a curtain from before them one after another. Meanwhile from the next clump a horseman came out suddenly.

”From Pan Motovidlo?” asked Volodyovski, when the Cossack stopped right before them.

”Yes, your grace.”

”What is to be heard?”

”They crossed Sirotski Brod, turned toward the bellowing of the bullocks, and went in the direction of Kalusik. They took the cattle, and are at Yurgove Polye.”

”And where is Pan Motovidlo?”

”He has stopped near the hill, and Pan Mellehovich neat Kalusik. Where the other squadrons are I know not.”

”Well,” said Volodyovski, ”I know. Hurry to Pan Motovidlo and carry the command to close in, and dispose men singly as far as halfway from Pan Mellehovich. Hurry!”

The Cossack bent in the saddle and shot forward, so that the flanks of his horse quivered at once, and soon he was out of sight. They rode on still more quietly, still more cautiously. Meanwhile it had become clear day. The haze which had risen from the earth about dawn fell away altogether, and on the eastern side of the sky appeared a long streak, bright and rosy, the rosiness and light of which began to color the air on high land, the edges of distant ravines, and the hill-tops. Then there came to the ears of the hors.e.m.e.n a mingled croaking from the direction of the Dniester; and high in the air before them appeared, flying eastward, an immense flock of ravens. Single birds separated every moment from the others, and instead of flying forward directly began to describe circles, as kites and falcons do when seeking for prey. Pan Zagloba raised his sabre, pointing the tip of it to the ravens, and said to Basia,--

”Admire the sense of these birds. Only let it come to a battle in any place, straightway they will fly in from every side, as if some one had shaken them from a bag. But let the same army march alone, or go out to meet friends, the birds will not come; thus are these creatures able to divine the intentions of men, though no one a.s.sists them. The wisdom of nostrils is not sufficient in this case, and so we have reason to wonder.”

Meanwhile the birds, croaking louder and louder, approached considerably; therefore Pan Mushalski turned to the little knight and said, striking his palm on the bow, ”Pan Commandant, will it be forbidden to bring down one, to please the lady? It will make no noise.”

”Bring down even two,” said Volodyovski, seeing how the old soldier had the weakness of showing the certainty of his arrows.

Thereupon the incomparable bowman, reaching behind his shoulder, took out a feathered arrow, put it on the string, and raising the bow and his head, waited.

The flock was drawing nearer and nearer. All reined in their horses and looked with curiosity toward the sky. All at once the plaintive wheeze of the string was heard, like the twitter of a sparrow; and the arrow, rus.h.i.+ng forth, vanished near the flock. For a while it might be thought that Mushalski had missed, but, behold, a bird reeled head downward, and was dropping straight toward the ground over their heads, then tumbling continually, approached nearer and nearer; at last it began to fall with outspread wings, like a leaf opposing the air. Soon it fell a few steps in front of Basia's pony. The arrow had gone through the raven, so that the point was gleaming above the bird's back.

”As a lucky omen,” said Mushalski, bowing to Basia, ”I will have an eye from a distance on the lady commandress and my great benefactress; and if there is a sudden emergency, G.o.d grant me again to send out a fortunate arrow. Though it may buzz near by, I a.s.sure you that it will not wound.”

”I should not like to be the Tartar under your aim,” answered Basia.

Further conversation was interrupted by Volodyovski, who said, pointing to a considerable eminence some furlongs away, ”We will halt there.”

After these words they moved forward at a trot. Halfway up, the little knight commanded them to lessen their pace, and at last, not far from the top, he held in his horse.

”We will not go to the very top,” said he, ”for on such a bright morning the eye might catch us from a distance; but dismounting, we will approach the summit, so that a few heads may look over.”

When he had said this, he sprang from his horse, and after him Basia, Pan Mushalski, and a number of others. The dragoons remained below the summit, holding their horses; but the others pushed on to where the height descended in wall form, almost perpendicularly, to the valley.

At the foot of this wall, which was a number of tens of yards in height, grew a somewhat dense, narrow strip of brushwood, and farther on extended a low level steppe; of this they were able to take in an enormous expanse with their eyes from the height. This plain, cut through by a small stream running in the direction of Kalusik, was covered with clumps of thicket in the same way that it was near the cliff. In the thickest clumps slender columns of smoke were rising to the sky.

”Yon see,” said Pan Michael to Basia, ”that the enemy is hidden there.”

”I see smoke, but I see neither men nor horses,” said Basia, with a beating heart.

”No; for they are concealed by the thickets, though a trained eye can see them. Look there: two, three, four, a whole group of horses are to be seen,--one pied, another all white, and from here one seems blue.”

”Shall we go to them soon?”

”They will be driven to us; but we have time enough, for to that thicket it is a mile and a quarter.”

”Where are our men?”