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.
Suddenly she heard the neighing of a horse amid the fog a few hundred yards behind.
Then the hair rose on her head.
“Mine will fall dead, but so will that one!” said she, aloud; and again she shot on.
For some time her horse rushed forward with the speed of a dove pursued by a falcon, and he ran long, almost to the last of his strength; but the neighing was heard continually behind in the distance. There was in that neighing which came out of the fog something at once of immeasurable yearning and threatening; still, after the first alarm had passed, it came to Basia’s mind that if someone were sitting on that horse he would not neigh, for the rider, not wishing to betray the pursuit, would stop the neighing.
“Can it be that that is only Azya’s horse following mine?” thought Basia.
For the sake of precaution she drew both pistols out of the holsters; but the caution was needless. After a while something seemed black in the thinning mist, and Azya’s horse ran up with flowing mane and distended nostrils. Seeing the pony, he began to approach him, giving out short and sudden neighs; and the pony answered immediately.
“Horse, horse!” cried Basia.
The animal, accustomed to the human hand, drew near and let itself be taken by the bridle. Basia raised her eyes to Heaven, and said:—
“The protection of God!”
In fact, the seizure of Azya’s horse was a circumstance for her in every way favorable. To begin with, she had the two best horses in the whole detachment; secondly, she had a horse to change; and thirdly, the presence of the beast assured her that pursuit would not start soon. If the horse had run to the detachment, the Tartars, disturbed at sight of him, would have turned surely and at once to seek their leader; now it will not come to their heads that anything could befall him, and they will go back to look for Azya only when they are alarmed at his too prolonged absence.
“By that time I shall be far away,” concluded Basia in her mind.
Here she remembered for the second time that Azya’s detachments were stationed in Yampol and Mohiloff. “It is necessary to go past through the broad steppe, and not approach the Dniester until in the neighborhood of Hreptyoff. That terrible man has disposed his troops cunningly, but God will save me.”
Thus thinking, she collected her spirits and prepared to continue her journey. At the pommel of Azya’s saddle she found a musket, a horn with powder, a box of bullets, a box of hemp-seed which the Tartar had the habit of chewing continually. Basia, shortening the stirrups of Azya’s saddle to her own feet, thought to herself that during the whole way she would live, like a bird, on those seeds, and she kept them carefully near her.
She determined to avoid people and farms; for in those wildernesses more evil than good was to be looked for from every man. Fear oppressed her heart when she asked herself, “How shall I feed the horses?” They would dig grass out from under the snow, and pluck moss from the crevices of rocks, but might they not die from bad food and excessive travelling? Still, she could not spare them.
There was another fear: Would she not go astray in the desert? It was easy to avoid that by travelling along the Dniester, but she could not take that road. What would happen were she to enter gloomy wildernesses, immense and roadless? How would she know whether she was going northward, or in some other direction, if foggy days were to come, days without sunshine, and nights without stars? The forests were swarming with wild beasts; she cared less for that, having courage in her brave heart and having weapons. Wolves, going in packs, might be dangerous, it is true, but in general she feared men more than beasts, and she feared to go astray most of all.
“Ah, God will show me the way, and will let me return to Michael,” said she, aloud. Then she made the sign of the cross, wiped with her sleeve her face free from the moisture which made her pale cheeks cold, looked with quick eyes around the country, and urged her horse on to a gallop.
XL
No one thought of searching for Tugai Bey’s son; therefore he lay on the ground until he recovered consciousness. When he had come to his senses, 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 he discovered that he was looking with only one eye, and badly with that one. The other was either knocked out, or filled with blood.
Azya raised his hands to his face. His fingers found icicles of blood stiff on his mustaches; his mouth too was full of blood which was suffocating him so that he had to cough and spit it out a number of times; a terrible pain pierced his face at this spitting; he put his fingers above his
