Basia accompanied him too; but after Basia Pan Michael sent secretly a number of tens of men to give aid in emergency, for though it was known always in Hreptyoff what men were doing in the desert for twenty miles around, Pan Michael preferred to be cautious. The soldiers loved Basia more every day, for she took pains with their food and drink; she nursed the sick and wounded. Even the sullen Mellehovich, whose head pained him continually, and who had a harder and a wilder heart than others, grew bright at the sight of her. Old soldiers were in raptures over her knightly daring and close knowledge of military affairs.
“If the Little Falcon were gone,” said they, “she might take command, and it would not be grievous to fall under such a leader.”
At times it happened too that when some disorder arose in the service during Pan Michael’s absence, Basia reprimanded the soldiers, and obedience to her was great; old warriors were more grieved by reproval from her mouth than by punishment, which the veteran Pan Michael inflicted unsparingly for dereliction of duty. Great discipline reigned always in the command, for Volodyovski, reared in the school of Prince Yeremi, knew how to hold soldiers with an iron hand; and, moreover, the presence of Basia softened wild manners somewhat. Every man tried to please her; every man thought of her rest and comfort; hence they avoided whatever might annoy her.
In the light squadron of Pan Nikolai Pototski there were many officers, experienced and polite, who, though they had grown rough in continual wars and adventures, still formed a pleasant company. These, with the officers from other squadrons, often spent an evening with the colonel, telling of events and wars in which they had taken part personally. Among these Pan Zagloba held the first place. He was the oldest, had seen most and done much; but when, after one and the second goblet, he was dozing in a comfortable stuffed chair, which was brought for him purposely, others began. And they had something to tell, for there were some who had visited Sweden and Moscow; there were some who had passed their years of youth at the Saitch before the days of Hmelnitski; there were some who as captives had herded sheep in the Crimea; who in slavery had dug wells in Bagchesarai; who had visited Asia Minor; who had rowed through the Archipelago in Turkish galleys; who had beaten with their foreheads on the grave of Christ in Jerusalem; who had experienced every adventure and every mishap, and still had appeared again under the flag to defend to the end of their lives, to the last breath, those border regions steeped in blood.
When in November the evenings became longer and there was peace on the side of the broad steppe, for the grass had withered, they used to assemble in the colonel’s house daily. Hither came Pan Motovidlo, the leader of the Cossacks—a Russian by blood, a man lean as pincers and tall as a lance, no longer young; he had not left the field for twenty years and more. Pan Deyma came too, the brother of that one who had killed Pan Ubysh; and with them Pan Mushalski, a man formerly wealthy, but who, taken captive in early years, had rowed in a Turkish galley, and escaping from bondage, had left his property to others, and with sabre in hand was avenging his wrongs on the race of Mohammed. He was an incomparable bowman, who, when he chose, pierced with an arrow a heron in its lofty flight. There came also the two partisans, Pan Vilga and Pan Nyenashinyets, great soldiers, and Pan Hromyka and Pan Bavdynovich, and many others. When these began to tell tales and to throw forth words quickly, the whole Oriental world was seen in their narratives—Bagchesarai and Stambul, the minarets and sanctuaries of the false prophet, the blue waters of the Bosphorus, the fountains, and the palace of the Sultan, the swarms of men in the stone city, the troops, the janissaries, the dervishes, and that whole terrible locust-swarm, brilliant as a rainbow, against which the Commonwealth with bleeding breast was defending the Russian cross, and after it all the crosses and churches in Europe.
The old soldiers sat in a circle in the broad room, like a flock of storks which, wearied with flying, had settled on some grave-mound of the steppe and were making themselves heard with great uproar. In the fireplace logs of pitch-pine were burning, casting out sharp gleams through the whole room. Moldavian wine was heated at the fire by the order of Basia; and attendants dipped it with tin dippers and gave it to the knights. From outside the walls came the calls of the sentries; the crickets, of which Pan Michael had complained, were chirping in the room and whistling sometimes in the chinks stuffed with moss; the November wind, blowing from the north, grew more and more chilly. During such cold it was most agreeable to sit in a comfortable, well-lighted room, and listen to the adventures of the knights.
On such an evening Pan Mushalski spoke as follows:—
“May the Most High have in His protection the whole sacred Commonwealth, us all, and among us especially her grace, the lady here present, the worthy wife of our commander, on whose beauty our eyes are scarcely worthy to gaze. I have no wish to rival Pan Zagloba, whose adventures would have roused the greatest wonder in Dido herself and her charming attendants; but if you, gentlemen, will give time to hear my adventures, I will not delay, lest I offend the honorable company.
“In youth I inherited in the Ukraine a considerable estate near Tarashcha. I had two villages from my mother in
