His heart was palpitating, his hands were shaking; yet he managed to go on, notching evenly, regularly, with rhythmical strokes, never raising his eyes till the men were standing before him.
“Is Roch in your hut?” asked the Voyt, mortally afraid.
Antek looked around at the group, and replied with great deliberation:
“He must be in the village, I suppose: I have not set eyes on him since this morning.”
“Open your doors!” thundered the commanding officer.
“Why, they are open!” Antek growled, getting up from his bench.
The officer and some of his men went in, while the others watched the orchard and outhouses.
About half the village was now outside in the road, looking on in silence, while the cottage was searched and ransacked thoroughly. Antek had to point out and open everything, while Hanka sat by the window with the baby at her breast.
The search was of course fruitless; but they sought everywhere, and were so careful to overlook nothing that one of them even peered under the bed!
Some little books, strapped together, were lying on the table. The officer pounced upon them, and set to examine them with the utmost care.
“How have ye come by these?”
“Belike Roch has left them there … and there they lie.”
“The mistress here cannot read,” the Voyt explained.
“Can anyone amongst you read?”
“No,” Antek returned; “they teach us at school so well that now no one is able even to spell out the words in our prayer-books!”
The officer handed the little books to a subordinate, and passed round to the other side of the hut.
“What’s here?—A sick child?” he said, taking a step towards Yuzka.
“Yes. She has been lying there for a couple of weeks: smallpox.”
He retired hurriedly into the passage.
“Was Roch a lodger in this cabin?” he asked of the Voyt.
“In this or any other, according as it struck him: ’tis the dziads’ wont.”
They peered into every hole and corner, even looking behind the holy images; while Yuzka followed their movements with eyes full of dread, trembling all over. One of them having approached her, she cried out wildly:
“Oh, have I hidden him under me? Seek him then here, do!”
When they had done, Antek went over to their officer, and said very humbly, with a deep bow:
“Has Roch stolen aught, I should like to know?”
The other, putting his face close to Antek’s, replied with a stare, and laying stress on each word:
“Be it but found that you have concealed him, and ye shall go on a journey together, both of you!—Do you hear?”
“I hear indeed, but cannot think what all this means.” And he scratched his head, as if much perplexed.
The officer shot an angry look at him, and left the cabin.
They went round to many another, looking here and there, asking questions of many a one, until sundown; when, the roads filling with home-driven cattle, they went back empty-handed.
Now the village breathed freely, and people began telling of the searches—at the Klembas’—at Gregory’s—at Matthew’s—and how each had seen things better than anybody else, and had not been frightened in the least, but had annoyed and bantered the gendarmes to the utmost!
But Antek, once alone with Hanka, said to her, dropping his voice:
“This is a wretched business, I see: there will be no keeping him in our cabin any longer.”
“What, turn him out? So holy a man? One that does so much good?”
“A curse on it all! I am sick of it!” he cried, unable to find any way out of the quandary. But Gregory came presently, along with Matthew, and they held a consultation, locked up together in the barn: the cabin, continually full of callers for news, was no fit place.
When they came out, it was quite dark. Hanka had milked the cows, and Pete was back from the forest. Antek got the britzka and directly, while Gregory and Matthew went out, ostensibly to look everywhere for Roch, in reality to mislead the people of the village.
They were indeed all surprised at the quest, having made sure that Roch lay somewhere concealed on Boryna’s premises. But the two friends gave out that he had left Boryna’s directly after dinner and had not been heard of since.
“Lucky for him, or he would be journeying in chains ere now!”
So it became generally known (as they had planned) that Roch had not been seen in Lipka since noon.
People were glad, and said amongst themselves: “He guessed what was awaiting him, and is off ‘to the land where pepper grows.’ ”
“Let him not come back, I say; we do not want him,” old Ploshka growled.
Matthew snarled back at him: “Is he in your way? Has he wronged you in aught?”
“He disturbed the peace and troubled Lipka not a little. We all may yet suffer on his account.”
“Then why not seize on him, you, and give him up?”
“Long ago we should have done so, had we any understanding!”
Matthew uttered a curse, and would have flown at him; they held him back, but with difficulty. And then, it being late, they went each man to his own cabin.
Antek was awaiting this moment, when the roads were deserted, and everybody was supping at home, and the scent of fried bacon was wafted abroad with the sound of merry talk and the tinkling of spoons in the dishes; then he brought Roch to the room where Yuzka lay; but he would not have a candle lit.
The old man snatched a hasty meal, put on what clothes he had left in the hut, and said farewell to the women. Hanka fell at his feet, and Yuzka wept and wailed piteously.
“God be with you! we
