Pan Michael

went on a campaign, and the horde took her captive. When I came home I beat my head against the wall. My property had vanished in time of the invasion; but I sold what I had, put my last saddle on a horse, and went with Armenians to ransom my sister. I found her in Bagchesarai. She was attached to the harem, not in the harem, for she was only twelve years of age then. I shall never forget the hour when I found thee, O Halshka. How thou didst embrace my neck! how thou didst kiss me in the eyes! But what! It turned out that the money I had brought was too little. The girl was beautiful. Yehu Aga, who carried her away, asked three times as much for her. I offered to give myself in addition, but that did not help. She was bought in the market before my eyes by Tugai Bey, that famous enemy of ours, who wished to keep her three years in his harem and then make her his wife. I returned, tearing my hair. On the road home I discovered that in a Tartar village by the sea one of Tugai Bey’s wives was dwelling with his favorite son Azya. Tugai Bey had wives in all the towns and in many villages, so as to have everywhere a resting-place under his own roof. Hearing of this son, I thought that God would show me the last means of salvation for Halshka. At once I determined to bear away that son, and then exchange him for my sister; but I could not do this alone. It was necessary to assemble a band in the Ukraine, or the Wilderness, which was not easy⁠—first, because the name of Tugai Bey was terrible in all Russia, and secondly, he was helping the Cossacks against us. But not a few heroes were wandering through the steppes⁠—men looking to their own profit only and ready to go anywhere for plunder. I collected a notable party of those. What we passed through before our boats came out on the sea tongue cannot tell, for we had to hide before the Cossack commanders. But God blessed us. I stole Azya, and with him splendid booty. We returned to the Wilderness in safety. I wished to go thence to Kamenyets and commence negotiations with merchants of that place.

“I divided all the booty among my heroes, reserving for myself Tugai Bey’s whelp alone; and since I had acted with such liberality, since I had suffered so many dangers with those men, had endured hunger with them, and risked my life for them, I thought that each one would spring into the fire for me, that I had won their hearts for the ages.

“I had reason to repent of that bitterly and soon. It had not come to my head that they tear their own ataman to pieces, to divide his plunder between themselves afterward; I forgot that among them there are no men of faith, virtue, gratitude, or conscience. Near Kamenyets the hope of a rich ransom for Azya tempted my followers. They fell on me in the nighttime like wolves, throttled me with a rope, cut my body with knives, and at last, thinking me dead, threw me aside in the desert and fled with the boy.

“God sent me rescue and gave back my health; but my Halshka is gone forever. Maybe she is living there yet somewhere; maybe after the death of Tugai Bey another Pagan took her; maybe she has received the faith of Mohammed; maybe she has forgotten her brother; maybe her son will shed my blood sometime. That is my history.”

Here Pan Nyenashinyets stopped speaking and looked on the ground gloomily.

“What streams of our blood and tears have flowed for these regions!” said Pan Mushalski.

“Thou shalt love thine enemies,” put in Father Kaminski.

“And when you came to health did you not look for that whelp?” asked Zagloba.

“As I learned afterward,” answered Pan Nyenashinyets, “another band fell on my robbers and cut them to pieces; they must have taken the child with the booty. I searched everywhere, but he vanished as a stone dropped into water.”

“Maybe you met him afterward, but could not recognize him,” said Basia.

“I do not know whether the child was as old as three years. I barely learned that his name was Azya. But I should have recognized him, for he had tattooed over each breast a fish in blue.”

All at once Mellehovich, who had sat in silence hitherto, spoke with a strange voice from the corner of the room, “You would not have known him by the fish, for many Tartars bear the same sign, especially those who live near the water.”

“Not true,” answered the hoary Pan Hromyka; “after Berestechko we examined the carrion of Tugai Bey⁠—for it remained on the field; and I know that he had fish on his breast, and all the other slain Tartars had different marks.”

“But I tell you that many wear fish.”

“True; but they are of the devilish Tugai Bey stock.”

Further conversation was stopped by the entrance of Pan Lelchyts, whom Pan Michael had sent on a reconnoissance that morning, and who had returned just then.

“Pan Commandant,” said he in the door, “at Sirotski Brod, on the Moldavian side, there is some sort of band moving toward us.”

“What kind of people are they?” asked Pan Michael.

“Robbers. There are a few Wallachians, a few Hungarians; most of them are men detached from the horde, altogether about two hundred in number.”

“Those are the same of whom I have tidings that they are plundering on the Moldavian side,” said Volodyovski, “The perkulab must have made it hot for them there, hence they are escaping toward us; but of the horde alone there will be about two hundred. They will cross in the night, and at daylight we shall intercept them. Pan Motovidlo and Mellehovich will be ready at midnight. Drive forward a small herd of bullocks to entice