Pan Mushalski, standing hitherto at a distance, approached Basia. “Your ladyship, my benefactress, fought really like a cavalier,” said he. “A man not knowing that you were there might have thought that the Archangel Michael had come down to help our Cossacks, and was smiting the dog brothers. What an honor for them to perish under such a hand, which on this occasion let it not be forbidden me to kiss.” So saying, Pan Mushalski seized Basia’s hand and pressed it to his mustache.
“Did you see? Did I do well, really?” inquired Basia, catching the air in her distended nostrils and her mouth.
“A cat could not do better against rats. The heart rose in me at sight of you, as I love the Lord God. But you did well to withdraw from the fight, for toward the end there is more chance for an accident.”
“My husband commanded me; and when leaving home, I promised to obey him at once.”
“May my bow remain? No! it is of no use now; besides, I will rush forward with the sabre. I see three men riding up; of course the colonel has sent them to guard your worthy person. Otherwise I would send; but I will go to the foot of the cliff, for the end will come soon, and I must hurry.”
Three dragoons really came to guard Basia; seeing this, Pan Mushalski spurred his horse and galloped away. For a while Basia hesitated whether to remain in that place or ride around the steep cliff, and go to the eminence from which they had looked on the plain before the battle. But feeling great weariness, she resolved to remain.
The feminine nature rose in her more and more powerfully. About two hundred yards distant they were cutting down the remnant of the ravagers without mercy, and a black mass of strugglers was whirling with growing violence on the bloody place of conflict. Despairing cries rent the air; and Basia, so full of eagerness shortly before, had grown weak now in some way. Great fear seized her, so that she came near fainting, and only shame in presence of the dragoons kept her in the saddle; she turned her face from them to hide her pallor. The fresh air brought back her strength slowly and her courage, but not to that degree that she had the wish to spring in anew among the combatants. She would have done so to implore mercy for the rest of the horde. But knowing that that would be useless, she waited anxiously for the end of the struggle. And there they were cutting and cutting. The sound of the hacking and the cries did not cease for a moment. Half an hour perhaps had passed; the squadrons were closing in with greater force. All at once a party of ravagers, numbering about twenty, tore themselves free of the murderous circle, and rushed like a whirlwind toward the eminence.
Escaping along the cliff, they might in fact reach a place where the eminence was lost by degrees in the plain, and find on the high steppe their salvation; but in their way stood Basia with the dragoons. The sight of danger gave strength to Basia’s heart at this moment, and self-control to her mind. She understood that to stay where she was was destruction; for the robbers with impetus alone could overturn and trample her and her guards, not to mention that they would bear them apart on sabres. The old sergeant of dragoons was clearly of this view, for he seized the bridle of Basia’s pony, turned the beast, and cried with voice almost despairing—
“On, on! serene lady!”
Basia shot away like the wind; but the three faithful soldiers stood like a wall on the spot, to hold back the enemy even one moment, and give the beloved lady time to put herself at a distance. Meanwhile soldiers galloped after that band in immediate pursuit; but the circle hitherto enclosing the ravagers hermetically was thereby broken; they began to escape in twos, in threes, and then more numerously. The enormous majority were lying on the field, but some tens of them, together with Azba Bey, were able to flee. All these rushed on in a body as fast as their horses could gallop toward the eminence.
Three dragoons could not detain all the fugitives—in fact, after a short struggle they fell from their saddles; but the cloud, running on behind Basia, turned to the slope of the eminence and reached the high steppe. The Polish squadrons in the front ranks and the nearer Lithuanian Tartars rushed with all speed some tens of steps behind them. On the high steppe, which was cut across thickly by treacherous clefts and ravines, was formed a gigantic serpent of those on horseback, the head of which was Basia, the neck the ravagers, and the continuation of the body Mellehovich with the Lithuanian Tartars and dragoons, at the head of which rushed Volodyovski, with his spurs in the side of his horse, and terror in his soul.
At the moment when the handful of robbers had torn themselves free of the ring, Volodyovski was engaged on the opposite side of it; therefore Mellehovich preceded him in the pursuit. The hair was standing on his head at
