But at that moment the sound of bells was given out from the neighboring Dominican monastery.
Hearing this, Pan Sobieski said—
“They are sounding for vespers, Bogush; let us go and commit ourselves to God.”
XXXIII
As much as Pan Bogush hastened when going from Hreptyoff to the hetman, so much did he loiter on the way back. He halted a week or two in each more considerable place; he spent Christmas in Lvoff, and the New Year came on him there. He carried, it is true, the hetman’s instructions for the son of Tugai Bey; but they contained merely injunctions to finish the affair of the captains promptly, and a dry and even threatening command to leave his great plans. Pan Bogush had no reason to push on, for Azya could do nothing among the Tartars without a document from the hetman. He loitered, therefore, visiting churches along the road, and doing penance because he had joined Azya’s plans.
Meanwhile guests had swarmed into Hreptyoff immediately after the New Year. From Kamenyets came Naviragh, a delegate from the patriarch of Echmiadzin, with him the two Anardrats, skilful theologians from Kaffa, and a numerous retinue. The soldiers wondered greatly at the strange garments of these men, at the violet and red Crimean caps, long shawls, velvet and silk, at their dark faces, and the great gravity with which they strode, like bustards or cranes, through the Hreptyoff stanitsa. Pan Zaharyash Pyotrovich, famed for his continual journeys to the Crimea, nay, to Tsargrad itself, and still more for the eagerness with which he sought out and ransomed captives in the markets of the East, accompanied, as interpreter, Naviragh and the Anardrats. Pan Volodyovski counted out to him at once the sum needful to ransom Pan Boski; and since the wife had not money sufficient, he gave from his own; Basia added her earrings with pearls, so as to aid more efficiently the suffering lady and her charming daughter. Pan Seferovich, pretor of Kamenyets, came also—a rich Armenian whose brother was groaning in Tartar bonds—and two women, still young and of beauty far from inconsiderable, though somewhat dark, Pani Neresevich and Pani Kyeremovich. Both were concerned for their captive husbands.
The guests were for the greater part in trouble, but there were joyous ones also. Father Kaminski had sent, to remain for the carnival at Hreptyoff, under Basia’s protection, his niece Panna Kaminski; and on a certain day Pan Novoveski the younger—that is, Pan Adam—burst in like a thunderbolt. When he had heard of the arrival of his father at Hreptyoff he obtained leave at once from Pan Rushchyts, and hastened to meet him.
Pan Adam had changed greatly during the last few years; first of all, his upper lip was shaded thickly by a short mustache, which did not cover his teeth, white as a wolf’s teeth, but was handsome and twisted. Secondly, the young man, always stalwart, had now become almost a giant. It seemed that such a dense and bushy forelock could grow only on such an enormous head, and such an enormous head could find needful support only on fabulous shoulders. His face, always dark, was swarthy from the winds; his eyes were gleaming like coals; defiance was as if written on his features. When he seized a large apple he hid it so easily in his powerful palm that he could play “guess which one;” and when he put a handful of nuts on his knee and pressed them with his hand he made snuff of them. Everything in him went to strength; still he was lean—his stomach was receding, but the chest above it was as roomy as a chapel. He broke horseshoes with ease, he tied iron rods around the necks of soldiers, he seemed even larger than he was in reality; when he walked, planks creaked under him; and when he stumbled against a bench, he knocked splinters from it.
In a word, he was a man in a hundred, in whom life, daring, and strength were boiling, as water in a cauldron. Not being able to find room, in even such an enormous body, it seemed that he had a flame in his breast and his head, and involuntarily one looked to see if his forelock were not steaming. In fact, it steamed sometimes, for he was good at the goblet. To battle he went with a laugh which recalled the neighing of a charger; and he hewed in such fashion that when each engagement was over soldiers went to examine the bodies left by him, and wonder at his astonishing blows. Accustomed, moreover, from childhood to the steppe, to watchfulness and war, he was careful and foreseeing in spite of all his vehemence; he knew every Tartar stratagem, and, after Volodyovski and Rushchyts, was deemed the best partisan leader.
In spite of threats and promises, old Novoveski did not receive his son very harshly; for he feared lest he might go away again if offended, and not show himself for another eleven years. Besides, the selfish noble was satisfied at heart with that son who had taken no money from home, who had helped himself thoroughly in the world, won glory among his comrades, the favor of the hetman, and the rank of an officer, which no one else could have struggled to without protection. The father considered that this young man, grown wild in the steppes, might not bend before the importance of his father, and in such a case it was not best to expose it to the test. Therefore the son fell at his feet, as was proper; still he looked into his eyes, and at the first reproach he answered without ceremony—
“Father, you have blame in your mouth, but at heart you are glad, and with reason, I have incurred no disgrace—I ran away to the squadron; besides, I am a noble.”
“But you may be a
