“Mulier insidiosa est (woman is insidious)!” said Zagloba, with gravity.
At this time Mellehovich was sitting in his own room with the Tartar messenger and speaking in a whisper. The two sat so near each other that they were almost forehead to forehead. A taper of mutton-tallow was burning on the table, casting yellow light on the face of Mellehovich, which, in spite of its beauty, was simply terrible; there were depicted on it hatred, cruelty, and a savage delight.
“Halim, listen!” whispered Mellehovich.
“Effendi,” answered the messenger.
“Tell Krychinski that he is wise, for in the letter there was nothing that could harm me; tell him that he is wise. Let him never write more clearly. They will trust me now still more, all of them, the hetman himself, Bogush, Myslishevski, the command here—all! Do you hear? May the plague stifle them!”
“I hear, Effendi.”
“But I must be in Rashkoff first, and then I will return to this place.”
“Effendi, young Novoveski will recognize you.”
“He will not. He saw me at Kalnik, at Bratslav, and did not know me. He will look at me, wrinkle his brows, but will not recognize me. He was fifteen years old when I ran away from the house. Eight times has winter covered the steppes since that hour. I have changed. The old man would know me, but the young one will not know me. I will notify you from Rashkoff. Let Krychinski be ready, and hold himself in the neighborhood. You must have an understanding with the perkulabs. In Yampol, also, is our squadron. I will persuade Bogush to get an order from the hetman for me, that it will be easier for me to act on Krychinski from that place. But I must return hither—I must! I do not know what will happen, how I shall manage. Fire burns me; in the night sleep flies from me. Had it not been for her, I should have died.”
Mellehovich’s lips began to quiver; and bending still again to the messenger, he whispered, as if in a fever, “Halim, blessed be her hands, blessed her head, blessed the earth on which she walks! Do you hear, Halim? Tell them there that through her I am well.”
XXVI
Father Kaminski had been a soldier in his youthful years and a cavalier of great courage; he was now stationed at Ushytsa and was reorganizing a parish. But as the church was in ruins, and parishioners were lacking, this pastor without a flock visited Hreptyoff, and remained there whole weeks, edifying the knights with pious instruction. He listened with attention to the narrative of Pan Mushalski, and spoke to the assembly a few evenings later as follows:—
“I have always loved to hear narratives in which sad adventures find a happy ending, for from them it is evident that whomever God’s hand guides, it can free from the toils of the pursuer and lead even from the Crimea to a peaceful roof. Therefore let each one of you fix this in his mind: For the Lord there is nothing impossible, and let no one of you even in direst necessity lose trust in God’s mercy. This is the truth!
“It was praiseworthy in Pan Mushalski to love a common man with brotherly affection. The Saviour Himself gave us an example when He, though of royal blood, loved common people and made many of them apostles and helped them to promotion, so that now they have seats in the heavenly senate.
“But personal love is one thing, and general love—that of one nation to another—is something different. The love which is general, our Lord, the Redeemer, observed no less earnestly than the other. And where do we find this love? When, O man, you look through the world, there is such hatred in hearts everywhere, as if people were obeying the commands of the Devil and not of the Lord.”
“It will be hard, your grace,” said Zagloba, “to persuade us to love Turks, Tartars, or other barbarians whom the Lord God Himself must despise thoroughly.”
“I am not persuading you to that, but I maintain this: that children of the same mother should have love for one another; but what do we see? From the days of Hmelnitski, or for thirty years, no part of these regions is dried from blood.”
“But whose fault is it?”
“Whoso will confess his fault first, him will God pardon.”
“Your grace is wearing the robes of a priest today; but in youth you slew rebels, as we have heard, not at all worse than others.”
“I slew them, for it was my duty as a soldier to do so; that was not my sin, but this, that I hated them as a pestilence. I had private reasons which I will not mention, for those are old times and the wounds are healed now. I repent that I acted beyond my duty. I had under my command one hundred men from the squadron of Pan Nyevodovski; and going often independently with my men, I burned, slaughtered, and hanged. You, gentlemen, know what times those were. The Tartars, called in by Hmelnitski, burned and slew; we burned and slew; the Cossacks left only land and water behind them in all places, committing atrocities worse than ours and the Tartars. There is nothing more terrible than civil war! What times those were no man will ever describe; enough that we and they fought more like mad dogs than men.
“Once news was sent to our command that ruffians had besieged Pan Rushitski in his fortalice. I was sent with my troops to the rescue. I came too late; the place was level with the ground. But I fell upon the drunken peasants and cut them down notably;
