Part 58 (1/2)
Finally this mental alarm became in the Tartar that which alarm becomes most frequently in a wild beast,--rage; and he began to rouse himself with that rage. ”Whatever happens,” thought he, ”she is mine, she is mine altogether; she will be mine to-morrow, and then will not return to her husband, but will follow me.”
At this thought wild delight seized him by the hair, and he said all at once in a voice which seemed strange to himself, ”Your grace has not known me till now.”
”In this fog your voice has so changed,” answered Basia, somewhat alarmed, ”that it seems to me really as if another were speaking.”
”In Mohiloff there are no troops, in Yampol none, in Rashkoff none. I alone am lord here,--Krychinski, Adurovich, and those others are my slaves; for I am a prince, I am the son of a ruler. I am their vizir, I am their highest murza; I am their leader, as Tugai Bey was; I am their khan; I alone have authority; all here is in my power.”
”Why do you say this to me?”
”Your grace has not known me hitherto. Rashkoff is not far away. I wished to become hetman of the Tartars and serve the Commonwealth; but Sobieski would not permit it. I am not to be a Lithuanian Tartar any longer; I am not to serve under any man's command, but to lead great chambuls myself, against Doroshenko, or the Commonwealth, as your grace wishes, as your grace commands.”
”How as I command? Azya, what is the matter with you?”
”This, that here all are my slaves, and I am yours. What is the hetman to me? I care not whether he has permitted or not. Say a word, your grace, and I will put Akkerman at your feet; and the Dobrudja, and those hordes which have villages there, and those which wander in the Wilderness, and those who are everywhere in winter quarters will be your slaves, as I am your slave. Command, and I will not obey the Khan of the Crimea, I will not obey the Sultan; I will make war on them with the sword, and aid the Commonwealth. I will form new hordes in these regions, and be khan over them, and you will be alone over me; to you alone will I bow down, beg for your favor and love.”
When he had said this, he bent in the saddle, and, seizing the woman, half terrified, and, as it were, stunned by his words, he continued to speak in a hurried, hoa.r.s.e voice; ”Have you not seen that I love only you? Ah, but I have suffered my share! I will take you now! You are mine, and you will be mine! No one will tear you from my hands in this place--you are mine, mine, mine!”
”Jesus, Mary!” cried Basia.
But he pressed her in his arms as if wis.h.i.+ng to smother her. Hurried breathing struggled from his lips, his eyes grew misty; at last he drew her out of the stirrups, off the saddle, put her in front of him, pressed her breast to his own, and his bluish lips, opening greedily, like the mouth of a fish, began to seek her mouth.
She uttered no cry, but began to resist with unexpected strength; between them rose a struggle in which only the panting of their breaths was to be heard. His violent movements and the nearness of his face restored her presence of mind. An instant of such clear vision came to Basia as comes to the drowning; she felt everything at once with the greatest vividness. Hence she felt first of all that the earth was vanis.h.i.+ng from under her feet, and a bottomless ravine opening, to which he was dragging her; she saw his desire, his treason, her own dreadful fate, her weakness and helplessness; she felt alarm, and a ghastly pain and sorrow, and at the same time there burst forth in her a flame of immense indignation, rage, and revenge. Such was the courage and spirit of that daughter of a knight, that chosen wife of the most gallant soldier of the Commonwealth, that in that awful moment she thought first of all, ”I will have revenge,” then ”I will save myself.”
All the faculties of her mind were strained, as hair is straightened with terror on the head; and that clearness of vision as in drowning became in her almost miraculous. While struggling her hands began to seek for weapons, and found at last the ivory b.u.t.t of an Eastern pistol; but at the same time she had presence of mind to think of this also,--that even if the pistol were loaded, even if she should c.o.c.k it, before she could bend her hand, before she could point the barrel at his head, he would seize her hand without fail, and take from her the last means of salvation. Hence she resolved to strike in another way.
All this lasted one twinkle of an eye. He indeed foresaw the attack, and put out his hand with the speed of a lightning flash; but he did not succeed in calculating her movement. The hands pa.s.sed each other, and Basia, with all the despairing strength of her young and vigorous arm, struck him with the ivory b.u.t.t of the pistol between the eyes.
The blow was so terrible that Azya was not able even to cry, and he fell backward, drawing her after him in his fall.
Basia raised herself in a moment, and, springing on her horse, shot off like a whirlwind in the direction opposite the Dnieper, toward the broad steppes.
The curtain of fog closed behind her. The horse, dropping his ears, rushed on at random among the rocks, clefts, ravines, and breaches. Any moment he might run into some cleft, any moment he might crush himself and his rider against a rocky corner; but Basia looked at nothing; for her the most terrible danger was Azya and the Tartars. A wonderful thing it was, that now, when she had freed herself from the hands of the robber, and when he was lying apparently dead among the rocks, dread mastered all her feelings. Lying with her face to the mane of the horse, shooting on in the fog, like a deer chased by wolves, she began to fear Azya more than when she was in his arms; and she felt terror and weakness and that which a helpless child feels, which, wandering where it wished, has gone astray, and is alone and deserted. Certain weeping voices rose in her heart, and began, with groaning, with timidity, with complaint, and with pity, to call for protection: ”Michael, save me! Michael, save me!”
The horse rushed on and on; led by a wonderful instinct, he sprang over breaches, avoided with quick movement prominent cliff corners, until at last the stony ground ceased to sound under his feet; evidently he had come to one of those open ”meadows” which stretched here and there among the ravines.
Sweat covered the horse, his nostrils were rattling loudly, but he ran and ran.
”Whither can I go?” thought Basia. And that moment she answered herself: ”To Hreptyoff.”
But new alarm pressed her heart at thought of that long road lying through terrible wildernesses. Quickly too she remembered that Azya had left detachments of his men in Mohiloff and Yampol. Doubtless these were all in the conspiracy; all served Azya, and would seize her surely, and take her to Rashkoff; she ought, therefore, to ride far into the steppe, and only then turn northward, thus avoiding the settlements on the Dniester.
She ought to do this all the more for the reason that if men were sent to pursue her, beyond doubt they would go near the river; and meanwhile it might be possible to meet some of the Polish commands in the wide steppes, on their way to the fortresses.
The speed of the horse decreased gradually. Basia, being an experienced rider, understood at once that it was necessary to give him time to recover breath, otherwise he would fall; she felt also that without a horse in those deserts she was lost.
She restrained, therefore, his speed, and went some time at a walk. The fog was growing thin, but a cloud of hot steam rose from the poor beast.
Basia began to pray.