“Have ye taken possession of your property as yet?”
“No, it is too soon after Father’s death, and we may not divide the land; but I have already overhauled the whole property carefully.”
A face just then appeared amongst the alders on the farther bank of the river. Antek fancied it might be Yagna. The thought made him restless, and though the talk continued, his eyes wandered a good deal towards the bank of the stream.
“Now,” he said presently, “I must go and bathe: the heat is unbearable”; and with that he went away downstream, making as if in search of a convenient place. But as soon as he was out of sight, he mended his pace to a run.
Yes, it was she herself, with a hoe on her shoulder, going out to work on her cabbage-plot.
He soon reached and greeted her.
She looked round cautiously and, recognizing him as he bent forward amongst the parted sedges, stopped short, alarmed, bewildered, and uncertain what to do.
“What! don’t you know me?” he whispered eagerly, trying at the same time, though unsuccessfully, to pass the river.
“Was it possible not to know you?” she answered low, looking apprehensively behind her towards the cabbage-plot, on which several women made red splashes afar.
“Where are you in hiding? I cannot find you anywhere.”
“Where? Your woman drove me from the cabin: I am staying with Mother.”
“Concerning that matter, I desire speech with you. Come, Yagna, and meet me by the churchyard this evening. I have something to say to you. Do come!” And he begged her very earnestly.
“Yes?—And what if someone should see me with you once more?—Of what has been I have enough already!” she answered. But he begged and entreated so hard that she felt her heart melting, and was sorry for the man.
“What new thing can you say? and wherefore do you call me?”
“Am I, Yagna, so altogether a stranger to you now?”
“No stranger; but yet not mine! I think no more of such things.”
“But come only, and you’ll not rue it!—Do you fear the burying-ground? Then come to the priest’s orchard. … Have you forgotten where, Yagna? Have you forgotten?”
Yagna averted her head, for her face was suffused with crimson.
“Talk not foolishly; you shame me!” She was exceedingly confused.
“Come—come—come! I shall be waiting till midnight!”
“Wait, then!” And she turned away and fled to the cabbage-field.
He gazed after her greedily, full of such craving, and burning with such fire in every vein, that he longed to pursue and seize her in the presence of all—and could barely hold back from doing so.
“ ’Tis naught—only the great heat has inflamed me mightily,” he thought, and undressed quickly to take a bath.
The cool water calmed him down; its chill brought him to his senses, and he began to reflect.
“How miserably weak I am, for a trifle to upset me so!”
He felt humiliated and looked round, fearing lest someone might have seen him with her; and then he carefully passed in review all he had heard said against Yagna.
“A pretty creature you are, indeed!” he thought, in contempt not unmingled with sorrow. But suddenly, as he stopped beneath a tree, a vision of her came before his eyes, in all her dazzling and marvellous beauty. And he cried:
“There’s not another like her in the whole wide world!”
This he said to himself with a groan, yearning terribly to see her but once again, to gather her in his arms, to press her to his breast, and take his full of those red lips of hers, and suck her sweet honey to the very last drop!
“Only, O Yagna! for this one last time! this once, this once only!” he cried aloud to her as if she had been present. For some time afterwards he rubbed his eyes, and gazed upon the trees around him, before he could muster sufficient strength to go back to the forge. Michael was alone, working at Antek’s plough.
“Will your cart,” he asked him, “be able to bear such a great weight of timber?”
“Let there be but the timber for it to bear!”
“I have promised: ’tis just as if you had it on your cart already.”
Antek set to ciphering on the door with a bit of chalk.
“I find,” he said with much pleasure, “that I may earn about three hundred zloty ere harvest-time.”
“It will,” the smith remarked casually, “come in handy for that affair of yours.”
Antek’s face clouded over at once, and his eyes looked gloomy.
“Say that nightmare of mine! When I but think of it, I feel all broken, and care no more even for my life.”
“That I can well understand; but not your having failed as yet to seek some means to preserve yourself.”
“But what can I do?”
“Something must be done. What, man! the calf gives its throat to the butcher: will you do so too?”
“None can butt through a stone wall with his head,” Antek returned, sighing bitterly.
Michael went on working with great energy; Antek sat plunged in disquieting and fearful thoughts, which made his face dark with changing expressions, till he started up and looked out in dismay. His brother-in-law let him suffer so for a considerable time, watching him with eyes full of cunning; but he finally said in a low voice:
“Casimir of Modlitsa found a way.”
“He that fled to ‘Hamerica’?”
“The same. A clever dog!—Aye, and a resolute one: who knew what he had to do, and did it!”
“Did they ever prove that he slew the gendarme?”
“He did not wait so long. No fool he, to submit to rot in prison!”
“He could flee: he was single.”
“A man saves himself as he can. See, I do not advise you in any wise: I only say what others have done. But Voytek Gayda of Volitsa came back from penal servitude only last Eastertide.—Ten years. Well, ’tis not a whole lifetime, and one can survive it.”
“Ten years! O Lord God!” Antek murmured, clutching at his hair.
“Yes; it was hard labour for that space of time.”
“I could bear anything but that! God! I was there
