“The britzka is waiting at Simon’s hut in Podlesie, and Matthew will drive for you.”
“But I must still pay a visit here in Lipka.—Where are we to meet?”
“At the crucifix by the forest, whither we are going at once.”
“That’s well, for I have yet many things to speak of with Gregory.”
And presently he was unseen and inaudible.
Antek put the horses to, placed a bushel of rye and a whole sack of potatoes in the britzka, conferred for some time apart with Vitek, and then said, for all to hear:
“Vitek! drive over to Szymek’s hut with the cart, and then come back: do ye hear?”
The lad’s eyes blazed, and he started off at such a pace that Antek called after him:
“Slower, you rogue, or you’ll lame the horses!”
Roch had meantime crept stealthily to Dominikova’s, where he had left a few things, and shut himself up in the inner room.
Andrew was on the watch by the roadside, and Yagna every now and then looked out into the enclosure, while the old woman, sitting in the front room, listened, trembling all over.
It took him some time before he came out to talk a little with Dominikova by herself; then he wanted to take up his bag and start off. But Yagna insisted on carrying it for him, at least to the forest. He agreed, and, taking leave of the others, went out into the fields, and slowly along the narrow pathways, with noiseless caution.
The night was clear and starlit; the lands lay hushed in slumber, with only now and then a sound of fitful barking.
They were nearing the forest, when Roch, coming to a standstill, took Yagna’s hand.
“Hear me, Yagna,” he said in a kindly tone, “and take to heart what I am going to say.”
She lent an ear, though agitated by an unpleasant sense of foreboding.
Then, just as a priest might speak in confession, he talked to her of her doings … with Antek … with the Voyt … and most of all with Yanek.
She listened in deep humiliation, with averted face covered with blushes; but when he named Yanek, she raised her head defiantly.
“With him I have done no evil whatsoever!”
He pointed out gently to her the temptations to which they were exposing themselves … the sins and scandals to which the Evil One might give occasion thereby.
But she hearkened to him no longer; her mind was full of Yanek only: unconsciously her bright red lips were murmuring with ardent and frenzied love:
“Yanek, O Yanek!”
Her glowing eyes gazed afar, and circled in fancy over his adored head.
“Oh, I would go with him to the ends of the earth!” she declared, not knowing what she said. At the words, Roch shuddered, cast one look at those wide-open eyes, and held his peace thenceforward.
At the edge of the wood, just by the crucifix, several capotes were seen to glimmer white. Roch stopped, full of misgiving:
“Who is there?”
“Only we—your friends!”
“I am tired, and must rest awhile,” he said, sitting down amongst them. Yagna gave up the bag to him, and seated herself not far off, at the foot of the crucifix, in the deep shadow of the branches.
“Well, may your troubles at least come to an end here!”
“The worst of all will come,” said Antek, “now that you go from us.”
“But it may be, it well may be, that I shall return one day!”
Here Matthew exploded. “Blood of a dog!” he cried; “to hunt men down so … as if they were mangy curs!”
Gregory moaned. “And why, Lord God, why?”
“Because,” Roch declared with solemn emphasis, “I want truth and righteousness for the people!”
“Hard is every man’s lot; but that of the righteous is harder!”
“Do not mourn, Gregory; evil will be changed into good.”
“So I think; ’tis hard to fancy that all we do is in vain.”
“While we’re awaiting the summer, the wolves will eat up our horses,” Antek sighed, peering into the darkness at the white blot which was Yagna’s face.
“But I say unto you: ‘Whoso plucks up the weeds and sows good seeds, great riches shall win, when harvest comes in!’ ”
“And if he fail?—Such things have been.”
“Yea, but he that sows, sows in the hope of gathering in a hundredfold.”
“Surely, for who would care to lose his toil?”
And they pondered these things deep in their hearts.
The wind was up now, the birch-trees murmured above them; a rustling sound came out of the forest, while the voice of the waving corn rose up to them from the fields. The moon floated along a pathway in the sky, made up of a double row of white clouds; the trees flung shadows mingled with patches of brightness; goatsuckers passed over their heads with a noiseless circling flight. Their hearts were very full of sadness.
Yagna shed tears in silence: she could not have said why.
“Wherefore do you sorrow?” he asked, laying his hand paternally on her head.
But the others too, all gloomy and cheerless, sat with their eyes fixed upon Roch, whom they now held for a man of God. He was sitting beneath the cross, from which the Crucified seemed to bend forward to bless his white weary head.
Then he spoke these words to them, full of hope and confidence:
“Fear naught for me. I am only a unit—one blade of corn in a fruitful field. If they take me, and I perish, what of that?—So many more remain!—each of us ready to die for the Cause! … And the time cometh when there will be thousands of them, from town and country, from cottage and from manor, all incessantly giving up their lives, one after another, piled and heaped together, the stones that are to form into the Holy Church of our desire! And that Church, I say unto you, shall
