“Who knows, who knows?” answered Yan, with animation. “Maybe that will be the best course.”
“And besides we shall take Halshka16 with the children, for we must go right through the wilderness.”
“And we shall serve among soldiers, not among militia,” added Stanislav.
“And we shall fight, not debate, nor eat chickens and cheese in the villages.”
“I see that not only in war, but in council you can hold the first place,” said Stanislav.
“Well, are you satisfied?”
“In truth, in truth,” said Yan, “that is the best advice. We shall be with Michael as before; you will know, Stanislav, the greatest soldier in the Commonwealth, my true friend, my brother. We will go now to Halshka, and tell her so that she too may be ready for the road.”
“Does she know of the war already?” asked Zagloba.
“She knows, she knows, for in her presence Stanislav told about it first. She is in tears, poor woman! But if I say to her that it is necessary to go, she will say straightway. Go!”
“I would start in the morning,” cried Zagloba.
“We will start in the morning and before daybreak,” said Yan. “You must be terribly tired after the road, Stanislav, but you will rest before morning as best you can. I will send horses this evening with trusty men to Byala, to Lostsi, to Drohichyn and Byelsk, so as to have relays everywhere. And just beyond Byelsk is the wilderness. Wagons will start today also with supplies. It is too bad to go into the world from the dear corner, but ’tis God’s will! This is my comfort: I am safe as to my wife and children, for the wilderness is the best fortress in the world. Come to the house, gentlemen; it is time for me to prepare for the journey.”
They went in. Pan Stanislav, greatly road-weary, had barely taken food and drink when he went to sleep straightway; but Pan Yan and Zagloba were busied in preparations. And as there was great order in Pan Yan’s household the wagons and men started that evening for an all-night journey, and next morning at daybreak the carriage followed in which sat Helena with the children and an old maid, a companion. Pan Stanislav and Pan Yan with five attendants rode on horseback near the carriage. The whole party pushed forward briskly, for fresh horses were awaiting them.
Travelling in this manner and without resting even at night, they reached Byelsk on the fifth day, and on the sixth they sank in the wilderness from the side of Hainovshyna.
They were surrounded at once by the gloom of the gigantic pine-forest, which at that period occupied a number of tens of square leagues, joining on one side with an unbroken line the wilderness of Zyelonka and Rogovsk, and on the other the forests of Prussia.
No invader had ever trampled with a hoof those dark depths in which a man who knew them not might go astray and wander till he dropped from exhaustion or fell a prey to ravenous beasts. In the night were heard the bellowing of the aurochs, the growling of bears, with the howling of wolves and the hoarse screams of panthers. Uncertain roads led through thickets or clean-trunked trees, along fallen timber, swamps, and terrible stagnant lakes to the scattered villages of guards, pitch-burners, and hunters, who in many cases did not leave the wilderness all their lives. To Byalovyej itself a broader way led, continued by the Suha road, over which the kings went to hunt. By that road also the Skshetuskis came from the direction of Byelsk and Hainovshyna.
Pan Stabrovski, chief-hunter of the king, was an old hermit and bachelor, who like an aurochs stayed always in the wilderness. He received the visitors with open arms, and almost smothered the children with kisses. He lived with beaters-in, never seeing the face of a noble unless when the king went to hunt. He had the management of all hunting matters and all the pitch-making of the wilderness. He was greatly disturbed by news of the war, of which he heard first from Pan Yan.
Often did it happen in the Commonwealth that war broke out or the king died and no news came to the wilderness; the chief-hunter alone brought news when he returned from the treasurer of Lithuania, to whom he was obliged to render account of his management of the wilderness each year.
“It will be dreary here, dreary,” said Stabrovski to Helena, “but safe as nowhere else in the world. No enemy will break through these walls, and even if he should try the beaters-in would shoot down all his men. It would be easier to conquer the whole Commonwealth—which may God not permit!—than the wilderness. I have been living here twenty years, and even I do not know it all, for there are places where it is impossible to go, where only wild beasts live and perhaps evil spirits have their dwelling, from whom men are preserved by the sound of church-bells. But we live according to God’s law, for in the village there is a chapel to which a priest from Byelsk comes once a year. You will be here as if in
