“If you have left him for that reason, the Lord God will not leave you; and the first proof of His kindness is that you can drink wine, which you could not do if you had remained in error.”
Snitko smiled; but questions touching his person and descent were clearly not to the taste of Mellehovich, for he grew reserved again. Zagloba, however, paid little attention to this, especially since the young Tartar did not please him much, for at times he reminded him, not by his face, it is true, but by his movements and glance, of Bogun, the famed Cossack leader.
Meanwhile dinner was served. The rest of the day was occupied in final preparations for the road. They started at daybreak, or rather when it was still night, so as to arrive at Hreptyoff in one day.
Nearly twenty wagons were collected, for Basia had determined to supply the larders of Hreptyoff bountifully; and behind the wagons followed camels and horses heavily laden, bending under the weight of meal and dried meat; behind the caravan moved a number of tens of oxen of the steppe and a flock of sheep. The march was opened by Mellehovich with his Tartars; the dragoons rode near a covered carriage in which sat Basia with Pan Zagloba. She wished greatly to ride a trained palfrey; but the old noble begged her not to do so, at least during the beginning and end of the journey.
“If you were to sit quietly,” said he, “I should not object; but you would begin right away to make your horse prance and show himself, and that is not proper to the dignity of the commander’s wife.”
Basia was happy and joyous as a bird. From the time of her marriage she had two great desires in life: one was to give Michael a son; the other to live with the little knight, even for one year, at some stanitsa near the Wilderness, and there, on the edge of the desert, to lead a soldier’s life, to pass through war and adventures, to take part in expeditions, to see with her own eyes those steppes, to pass through those dangers of which she had heard so much from her youngest years. She dreamed of this when still a girl; and behold, those dreams were now to become reality, and moreover, at the side of a man whom she loved and who was the most famous partisan in the Commonwealth, of whom it was said that he could dig an enemy from under the earth.
Hence the young woman felt wings on her shoulders, and such a great joy in her breast that at moments the desire seized her to shout and jump; but the thought of decorum restrained her, for she had promised herself to be dignified and to win intense love from the soldiers. She confided these thoughts to Zagloba, who smiled approvingly and said—
“You will be an eye in his head, and a great wonder, that is certain. A woman in a stanitsa is a marvel.”
“And in need I will give them an example.”
“Of what?”
“Of daring. I fear only one thing—that beyond Hreptyoff there will be other commands in Mohiloff and Rashkoff, on to Yampol, and that we shall not see Tartars even for medicine.”
“And I fear only this—of course not for myself, but for you—that we shall see them too often. Do you think that the chambuls are bound strictly to come through Rashkoff and Mohiloff? They can come directly from the East, from the steppes, or by the Moldavian side of the Dniester, and enter the boundaries of the Commonwealth wherever they wish, even in the hills beyond Hreptyoff, unless it is reported widely that I am living in Hreptyoff; then they will keep aside, for they know me of old.”
“But don’t they know Michael, or won’t they avoid him?”
“They will avoid him unless they come with great power, which may happen. But he will go to look for them himself.”
“I am sure of that. But is it a real desert in Hreptyoff? The place is not so far away!”
“It could not be more real. That region was never thickly settled, even in time of my youth. I went from farm to farm, from village to village, from town to town. I knew everything, was everywhere. I remember when Ushytsa was what is called a fortified town. Pan Konyetspolski, the father, made me starosta there; but after that came the invasion of the ruffians, and all went to ruin. When we went there for Princess Helena, it was a desert; and after that chambuls passed through it twenty times. Pan Sobieski has snatched it again from the Cossacks and the Tartars, as a morsel from the mouth of a dog. There are only a few people there now, but robbers are living in the ravines.”
Here Zagloba began to look at the neighborhood and nod his head, remembering old times. “My God!” said he, “when we were going for Helena, it seemed to me that old age was behind my girdle; and now I think that I was young then, for nearly twenty-four years have passed. Michael was a milksop at that time, and had not many more hairs on his lip than I have on my fist. And this region stands in my memory as if the time were yesterday. Only these groves and pine woods have grown in places deserted by tillers of the land.”
In fact, just beyond Kitaigrod they entered dense pine woods with which at that time the region was covered for the greater part. Here and there, however, especially around Studyenitsa, were open fields; and then they saw the Dniester and a country stretching forward from that side of the river to the heights, touching the horizon on the Moldavian side. Deep ravines, the abodes of wild beasts and wild men, intercepted their road; these ravines were at times
