With Fire and Sword, Henryk Sienkiewicz [year 7 reading list txt] 📗

fashion, but they do not recognize their poor relations, for which God punish them. We live in real Cossack poverty, which you must overlook, and accept with a good heart what we offer with sincerity. I and my five sons live on one village and a few hamlets, and in addition we have this young lady to care for.”

These words astonished the lieutenant not a little, for he had heard in Lubni that Rozlogi was no small estate, and also that it belonged to Prince Vassily, the father of Helena. He did not deem it proper, however, to inquire how the place had passed into the hands of Constantine and his widow.

“Then you have five sons, Princess?” asked Pan Rozvan Ursu.

“I had five, all like lions,” answered she; “but the infidels in Bélgorod put out the eyes of the eldest, Vassily, with torches, wherefore his mind has failed him. When the young men go on an expedition I stay at home with him and this young lady, with whom I have more suffering than comfort.”

The contemptuous tone with which the princess spoke of her niece was so evident that it did not escape the attention of the lieutenant. His breast boiled up in anger, and he had almost allowed an unseemly oath to escape him; but the words died on his lips when he looked at the young princess, and in the light of the moon saw her eyes filled with tears.

“What has happened? Why do you weep?” asked he, in a low voice.

She was silent.

“I cannot endure to see you weep,” said Pan Yan, and bent toward her. Seeing that the old princess was conversing with the envoy and not looking toward him, he continued: “In God’s name, speak but one word, for I would give blood and health to comfort you!”

All at once he felt one of the horsemen press against him so heavily that the horses began to rub their sides together. Conversation with the princess was interrupted. Skshetuski, astonished and also angered, turned to the intruder. By the light of the moon he saw two eyes, which looked at him insolently, defiantly, sneeringly. Those terrible eyes shone like those of a wolf in a dark forest.

“What devil is that?” thought the lieutenant⁠—“a demon or who?” And then, looking closely into those burning eyes, he asked: “Why do you push on me with your horse, and dig your eyes into me?”

The horseman did not answer, but continued to look with equal persistence and insolence.

“If it is dark, I can strike a light; and if the road is too narrow, then to the steppe with you!” said the lieutenant, in a distinct voice.

“Off with you from the carriage, Pole, if you see the steppe!” answered the horseman.

The lieutenant, being a man quick of action, instead of an answer struck his foot into the side of his enemy’s horse with such force that the beast groaned and in a moment was on the very edge of the road.

The rider reined him in on the spot, and for a moment it seemed that he was about to rush on the lieutenant; but that instant the sharp, commanding voice of the old princess resounded.

“Bogun, what’s the matter?”

These words had immediate effect. Bogun whirled his horse around, and passed to the other side of the carriage to the princess, who continued: “What is the matter? You are not in Pereyasláv nor the Crimea, but in Rozlogi. Remember this! But now gallop ahead for me, conduct the carriages; the ravine is at hand, and it is dark. Hurry on, you vampire!”

Skshetuski was astonished, as well as vexed. Bogun evidently sought a quarrel and would have found it; but why did he seek it⁠—whence this unexpected attack? The thought flashed through the lieutenant’s mind that Princess Helena had something to do with this; and he was confirmed in the thought, for, looking at her face, he saw, in spite of the darkness, that it was pale, and evident terror was on it.

Bogun spurred forward immediately in obedience to the command of the princess, who, looking after him, said half to herself and half to Pan Yan⁠—

“That’s a madcap, a Cossack devil.”

“It is evident that he is not in his full mind,” answered the lieutenant, contemptuously. “Is that Cossack in the service of your sons?”

The old princess threw herself back in the seat.

“What do you mean? Why, that is Bogun, lieutenant-colonel, a famous hero, a friend of my sons, and adopted by me as a sixth son. Impossible that you have not heard his name, for all know of him.”

This name was, in fact, well known to Pan Yan. From among the names of various colonels and Cossack atamans this one had come to the top, and was on every lip on both banks of the Dnieper. Blind minstrels sang songs of Bogun in marketplaces and shops, and at evening meetings they told wonders about the young leader. Who he was, whence he had come, was known to no man. This much was certain⁠—the steppes, the Dnieper, the Cataracts, and Chertomelik, with its labyrinth of narrows, arms, islands, rocks, ravines, and reeds, had been his cradle. From childhood he had lived and communed with that wild world.

In time of peace he went with others to fish and hunt, battered through the windings of the Dnieper, wandered over swamps and reeds with a crowd of half-naked comrades; then again he spent whole months in forest depths. His school was in raids to the Wilderness on the herds of the Tartars, in ambushes, battles, campaigns against Tartar coast towns, against Bélgorod, Wallachia, or with boats on the Black Sea. He knew no days but days on his horse, no nights but nights at a steppe fire.

Soon he became the favorite of the entire lower country, a leader of others, and surpassed all men in daring. He was ready to go with a hundred horse even to Bagche Sarai, and start up a blaze under the very eyes