That fear stifled and mastered gradually all Zosia’s feelings, till at last it stood alone in place of her desires, hopes, and memory. Not to be beaten had become for her an object. Basia in her place would have killed Azya with his own knife on the first day, without thinking of what might come afterwards; but the timid Zosia, half a child yet, had not Basia’s daring. And it came at last to this, that she considered it fondness if the terrible Azya, under the influence of momentary desire, put his deformed face near her lips. Sitting in the tent, she did not take her eyes from him, wishing to learn whether he was angry or not, following his movements, striving to divine his wishes.
When she foresaw evil, and when from under his mustaches, as in the case of Tugai Bey, the teeth began to glitter, she crept to his feet almost senseless from terror, pressed her pale lips to them, embracing convulsively his knees and crying like an afflicted child—
“Do not beat me, Azya! forgive me; do not beat!”
He forgave her almost never; he gloated over her, not only because she was not Basia, but because she had been the betrothed of Novoveski. Azya had a fearless soul; yet so awful were the accounts between him and Pan Adam that at thought of that giant, with vengeance hardened in his heart, a certain disquiet seized the young Tartar. There was to be war; they might meet, and it was likely that they would meet. Azya was not able to avoid thinking of this; and because these thoughts came to him at sight of Zosia, he took vengeance on her, as if he wished to drive away his own alarm with blows of rods.
At last the time came when the Sultan gave command to march. Azya’s men were to move in the vanguard, and after them the whole legion of Dobrudja and Belgrod Tartars. That was arranged between the Sultan, the vizir, and the kaimakan. But in the beginning all went to the Balkans together. The march was comfortable, for by reason of the heat which was setting in, they marched only in the night, six hours from one resting-place to the other. Tar-barrels were burning along their road, and the massala djirali lighted the way for the Sultan with colored lights. The swarms of people flowed on like a river, through boundless plains; filled the depressions of valleys like locusts, covered the mountains. After the armed men went the tabors, in them the harems; after the tabors herds without number.
But in the swamps at the foot of the Balkans the gilded and purple chariot of the kasseka was mired so that twelve buffaloes were unable to draw it from the mud. “That is an evil omen, lord, for thee and for the whole army,” said the chief mufti to the Sultan. “An evil omen,” repeated the half-mad dervishes in the camp. The Sultan was alarmed, and decided to send all women out of the camp with the marvellous kasseka.
The command was announced to the armies. Those of the soldiers who had no place to which they might send captives, and from love did not wish to sell them to strangers, preferred to kill them. Merchants of the caravanserai bought others by the thousand, to sell them afterward in the markets of Stambul and all the places of nearer Asia. A great fair, as it were, lasted for three days. Azya offered Zosia for sale without hesitation; an old Stambul merchant, a rich person, bought her for his son.
He was a kindly man, for at Zosia’s entreaties and tears he bought her mother from Halim; it is true that he got her for a trifle. The next day both wandered on toward Stambul, in a line with other women. In Stambul Zosia’s lot was improved, without ceasing to be shameful. Her new owner loved her, and after a few months he raised her to the dignity of wife. Her mother did not part from her.
Many people, among them many women, even after a long time of captivity, returned to their country. There was also some person, who by all means, through Armenians, Greek merchants, and servants of envoys from the Commonwealth, sought Zosia too, but without result. Then these searches were interrupted on a sudden; and Zosia never saw her native land, nor the faces of those who were dear to her. She lived till her death in a harem.
XLVIII
Even before the Turks marched from Adrianople, a great movement had begun in all the stanitsas on the Dniester. To Hreptyoff, the stanitsa nearest to Kamenyets, couriers of the hetman were hastening continually, bringing various orders; these the little knight executed himself, or if they did not relate to him, he forwarded them through trusty people. In consequence of these orders the garrison of Hreptyoff
