“In mine—in the hands of Tugai Bey’s son.”
But old Novoveski knew him before he spoke; and Eva also knew him, though the heart was straitened in her from terror and disgust at sight of that ghastly visage. The maiden covered her eyes with her unbound hands; and the noble, opening his mouth, began to blink with astonishment and repeat—
“Azya! Azya!”
“Whom your lordship reared, to whom you were a father, and whose back streamed with blood under your parental hand.”
Blood rushed to the noble’s head.
“Traitor,” said he, “you shall answer for your deeds before a judge. Serpent! I have a son yet.”
“And you have a daughter,” answered Azya, “for whose sake you gave command to flog me to death; and this daughter I will give now to the last of the horde, so that he may have service and pleasure from her.”
“Leader, give her to me!” cried Adurovich, on a sudden.
“Azya! Azya!” cried Eva, throwing herself at his feet, “I have always—”
But he kicked her away with one foot, and Adurovich seized her by the arms and began to drag her along the floor. Pan Novoveski from purple became blue; the ropes squeaked on his arms, as he twisted them, and from his mouth came unintelligible words. Azya rose from the skins and went toward him, at first slowly, then more quickly, like a wild beast preparing to bound on its prey. At last he came near, seized with the contorted fingers of one hand the mustaches of old Novoveski, and with the other fell to beating him without mercy on face and head.
A hoarse bellow was rent from his throat when the noble fell to the floor; Azya knelt on Novoveski’s breast, and suddenly the bright gleam of a knife shone in the room.
“Mercy! rescue!” screamed Eva. But Adurovich struck her on the head, and then put his broad hand on her mouth; meanwhile Azya was cutting the throat of Pan Novoveski.
The spectacle was so ghastly that it chilled even the breasts of the Tartars; for Azya, with calculated cruelty, drew his knife slowly across the neck of the ill-fated noble, who gasped and choked awfully. From his open veins the blood spurted more and more violently on the hands of the murderer and flowed in a stream along the floor. Then the rattling and gurgling ceased by degrees; finally air was wheezing in the severed throat, and the feet of the dying man dug the floor in convulsive quivers.
Azya rose; his eyes fell now on the pale and sweet face of Zosia Boski, who seemed dead, for she was hanging senseless on the arm of a Tartar who was holding her, and he said—
“I will keep this girl for myself, till I give her away or sell her.”
Then he turned to the Tartars: “Now only let the pursuit return, and we will go to the lands of the Sultan.”
The pursuit returned two days later, but with empty hands. Tugai Bey’s son went, therefore, to the land of the Sultan with despair and rage in his heart, leaving behind him a gray and bluish pile of ruins.
XLI
The towns through which Basia passed in going from Hreptyoff to Rashkoff were separated from each other by ten or twelve Ukraine miles,26 and that road by the Dniester was about thirty miles long. It is true that they started each morning in the dark, and did not stop till late in the evening; still, they made the whole journey, including time for refreshment, and in spite of difficult crossings and passages, in three days. People of that time and troops did not make such quick journeys usually; but whoso had the will, or was put to it, could make them. In view of this, Basia calculated that the journey back to Hreptyoff ought to take less time, especially as she was making it on horseback, and as it was a flight in which salvation depended on swiftness.
But she noted her error the first day, for unable to escape on the road by the Dniester, she went through the steppes and had to make broad circuits. Besides she might go astray, and it was probable that she would; she might meet with thawed rivers, impassable, dense forests, swamps not freezing even in winter; she might come to harm from people or beasts—therefore, though she intended to push on continually, even at night, she was confirmed in the conviction in spite of herself that, even if all went well with her, God knew when she would be in Hreptyoff.
She had succeeded in tearing herself from the arms of Azya; but what would happen farther on? Doubtless anything was better than those infamous arms; still, at thought of what was awaiting her the blood became icy in her veins.
It occurred at once to her that if she spared the horses she might be overtaken by Azya’s men, who knew those steppes thoroughly; and to hide from discovery, from pursuit, was almost impossible. They pursued Tartars whole days even in spring and summer when horses’ hoofs left no trace on the snow or in soft earth; they read the steppe as an open book; they gazed over those plains like eagles; they knew how to sniff a trail in them like hunting dogs; their whole life was passed in pursuing. Vainly had Tartars gone time and again in the water of streams so as not to leave traces; Cossacks, Lithuanian Tartars, and Cheremis, as well as Polish raiders of the steppe, knew how to find them, to answer their “methods” with “methods,” and to attack as suddenly as if they had sprung up through the earth. How was she to escape from such people unless to leave them so far in the rear that distance itself would
