Basia’s blow had crushed the upper part of his nose, and injured his cheekbone. He sat for a time without motion; then he began to look around with that eye in which some sight remained, and seeing a streak of snow in a cleft he crept up to it, seized a handful and applied it to his broken face.
This brought great relief straightway; and while the melting snow flowed down in red streaks over his mustaches, he collected another handful and applied it again. Besides, he began to eat snow eagerly, and that also brought relief to him. After a time the immense weight which he felt on his head became so much lighter that he called to mind all that had happened. But at the first moment he felt neither rage, anger, nor despair; bodily pain had deadened all other feelings, and left but one wish—the wish to save himself quickly.
Azya, when he had eaten a number of handfuls more of snow, began to look for his horse; the horse was not there; then he understood that if he did not wish to wait till his men came to look for him, he must go on foot. Supporting himself on the ground with his hands, he tried to rise, but howled from pain and sat down again.
He sat perhaps an hour, and again began to make efforts. This time he succeeded in so far that he rose, and, resting his shoulders against the cliff, was able to remain on his feet; but when he remembered that he must leave the support and make one step, then a second and a third in the empty expanse, a feeling of weakness and fear seized him so firmly that he almost sat down again.
Still he mastered himself, drew his sabre, leaned on it, and pushed forward; he succeeded. After some steps he felt that his body and feet were strong, that he had perfect command of them, only his head was, as it were, not his own, and like an enormous weight was swaying now to the right, now to the left, now to the front. He had a feeling also as if he were carrying that head, shaky and too heavy, with extraordinary care, and with extraordinary fear that he would drop it on the stones and break it.
At times, too, the head turned him around, as if it wished him to go in a circle. At times it became dark in his one eye; then he supported himself with both hands on the sabre. The dizziness of his head passed away gradually; but the pain increased always, and bored, as it were, into his forehead, into his eyes, into his whole head, till whining was forced from his breast. The echoes of the rocks repeated his groans, and he went forward in that desert, bloody, terrible, more like a vampire than a man.
It was growing dark when he heard the tramp of a horse in front.
It was the orderly coming for commands.
That evening Azya had strength to order pursuit; but immediately after he lay down on skins, and for three days could see no one except the Greek barber25 who dressed his wounds, and Halim, who assisted the barber. Only on the fourth day did he regain his speech, and with it consciousness of what had happened.
Straightway his feverish thoughts followed Basia. He saw her fleeing among rocks and in wild places; she seemed to him a bird that was flying away forever; he saw her nearing Hreptyoff, saw her in the arms of her husband, and at that sight a pain carried him away which was more savage than his wound, and with the pain sorrow, and with the sorrow shame for the defeat which he had suffered.
“She has fled, she has fled!” repeated he, continually; and rage stifled him so that at times presence of mind seemed to be leaving him again.
“Woe!” answered he, when Halim tried to pacify him, and give assurance that Basia could not escape pursuit; and he kicked the skins with which the old Tartar had covered him, and with his knife threatened him and the Greek. He howled like a wild beast, and tried to spring up, wishing to fly himself to overtake her, to seize her, and then from anger and wild love stifle her with his own hands.
At times he was wandering in delirium, and summoned Halim to bring the head of the little knight quickly, and to confine the commandant’s wife, bound, there in that chamber. At times he talked to her, begged, threatened; then he stretched out his hands to draw her to him. At last he fell into a deep sleep, and slept for twenty-four hours; when he woke the fever had left him entirely, and he was able to see Krychinski and Adurovich.
They were anxious, for they knew not what to do. The troops which had gone out under young Novoveski were not to return, it is true, before two weeks; but some unexpected event might hasten their coming, and then it was necessary to know what position to take. It is true that Krychinski and Adurovich were simply feigning a return to the service of the Commonwealth; but Azya was managing the whole affair: he alone could give them directions what to do in emergency; he alone could explain on which side was the greatest profit, whether to return to the dominions of the Sultan or to pretend, or how long to pretend, that they were serving the Commonwealth. They both knew well that in the end of ends Azya intended to betray the Commonwealth; but they supposed that he might command them to wait for the war before disclosing their treason, so as to betray most effectively. His indications were to be a command for them; for he had put himself on them as a leader, as the head of the whole affair,
