Генрик Сенкевич
The Deluge. Vol. 1
"To the question, to the question!" said Boguslav, calmly.
But Pan Andrei breathed heavily, and rode on some time in silence, with frowning brow and eyes fixed on the earth, like a man bowed down by misfortune.
"To the question!" repeated the prince.
Kmita roused himself as if from a dream, shook his head, and said, -
"I believed the prince hetman as I would not have believed my own father. I remember that banquet at which he announced his union with the Swedes. What I suffered then, what I passed through, God will account to me. Others, honorable men, threw their batons at his feet and remained with their country; but I stood like a stump with the baton, with shame, with submission, with infamy, in torture, for I was called traitor to my eyes. And who called me traitor? Oi, better not say, lest I forget myself, go mad, and put a bullet right here in the head of your highness. You are the men, you the traitors, the Judases, who brought me to that."
Here Kmita gazed with a terrible expression on the prince, and hatred came out on his face from the bottom of his soul, like a dragon which had crawled out of a cave to the light of day; but Boguslav looked at the young man with a calm, fearless eye. At last he said, -
"But that interests me, Pan Kmita; speak on."
Kmita dropped the bridle of the prince's horse, and removed his cap as if wishing to cool his burning head.
"That same night," continued he, "I went to the hetman, for he gave command to call me. I thought to myself, 'I will renounce his service, break my oath, suffocate him, choke him with these hands, blow up Kyedani with powder, and then let happen what may.' He knew too that was ready for anything, knew what I was; I saw well that he was fingering a box in which there were pistols. 'That is nothing,' thought I to myself; 'either he will miss me or he will kill me.' But he began to reason, to speak, to show such a prospect to me, simpleton, and put himself forward as such a savior, that your highness knows what happened."
"He convinced the young man," said Boguslav.
"So that I fell at his feet," cried Kmita, "and saw in him the father, the one savior, of the country; so that I gave myself to him soul and body as to a devil. For him, for his honesty I was ready to hurl myself headlong from the tower of Kyedani."
"I thought such would be the end," said Boguslav.
"What I lost in his cause I will not say, but I rendered him important services. I held in obedience my squadron, which is in Kyedani now, – God grant to his ruin! Others, who mutinied, I cut up badly. I stained my hands in brothers' blood, believing that a stern necessity for the country. Often my soul was pained at giving command to shoot honest soldiers; often the nature of a noble rebelled against him, when one time and another he promised something and did not keep his word. But I thought: 'I am simple, he is wise! – it must be done so.' But to-day, when I learned for the first time from those letters of the poisons, the marrow stiffened in my bones. How? Is this the kind of war? You wish to poison soldiers? And that is to be in hetman fashion? That is to be the Radzivill method, and am I to carry such letters?"
"You know nothing of politics, Cavalier," interrupted Boguslav.
"May the thunders crush it! Let the criminal Italians practise it, not a noble whom God has adorned with more honorable blood than others, but at the same time obliged him to war with a sabre and not with a drug-shop."
"These letters, then, so astonished you that you determined to leave the Radzivills?"
"It was not the letters, – I might have thrown them to the hangman, or tossed them into the fire, for they refer not to my duties; it was not the letters. I might have refused the mission without leaving the cause. Do I know what I might have done? I might have joined the dragoons, or collected a party again, and harried Hovanski as before. But straightway a suspicion came to me: 'But do they not wish to poison the country as well as those soldiers?' God granted me not to break out, though my head was burning like a grenade, to remember myself, to have the power to think: 'Draw him by the tongue, and discover the whole truth; betray not what you have at heart, give yourself out as worse than the Radzivills themselves, and draw him by the tongue.'"
"Whom, – me?"
"Yes! God aided me, so that I, simple man, deceived a politician, – so that your highness, holding me the last of ruffians, hid nothing of your own ruffianism, confessed everything, told everything, as if it had been written on the hand. The hair stood on my head, but I listened and listened to the end. O traitors! arch hell-dwellers! O parricides! How is it, that a thunderbolt has not stricken you down before now? How is it that the earth has not swallowed you? So you are treating with Hmelnitski, with the Swedes, with the elector, with Rakotsy, and with the devil himself to the destruction of this Commonwealth? Now you want to cut a mantle out of it for yourself, to sell it to divide it, to tear your own mother like wolves? Such is your gratitude for all the benefits heaped on you, – for the offices, the honors, the dignities, the wealth, the authority, the estates which foreign kings envy you? And you were ready without regard to those tears, torments, oppression. Where is your conscience, where your faith, where your honesty? What monster brought you into the world?"
"Cavalier," interrupted Boguslav, coldly, "you have me in your hand, you can kill me; but I beg one thing, do not bore me."
Both were silent.
However, it appeared plainly, from the words of Kmita, that the soldier had been able to draw out the naked truth from the diplomat, and that the prince was guilty of great incautiousness, of a great error in betraying his most secret plans and those of the hetman. This pricked his vanity; therefore, not caring to hide his ill-humor, he said, -
"Do not ascribe it to your own wit merely, Pan Kmita, that you got the truth from me. I spoke openly, for I thought the prince voevoda knew people better, and had sent a man worthy of confidence."
"The prince voevoda sent a man worthy of confidence," answered Kmita, "but you have lost him. Henceforth only scoundrels will serve you."
"If the way in which you seized me was not scoundrelly, then may the sword grow to my hand in the first battle."
"It was a stratagem! I learned it in a hard school. You wish, your highness, to know Kmita. Here he is! I shall not go with empty hands to our gracious lord."
"And you think that a hair of my head will fall from the hand of Yan Kazimir?"
"That is a question for the judges, not for me."
Suddenly Kmita reined in his horse: "But the letter of the prince voevoda, – have you that letter on your person?"
"If I had, I would not give it. The letter remained in Pilvishki."
"Search him!" cried Kmita.
The soldiers seized the prince again by the arms. Soroka began to search his pockets. After a while he found the letter.
"Here is one document against you and your works," said Pan Andrei, taking the letter. "The King of Poland will know from it what you have in view; the Swedish King will know too, that although now you are serving him, the prince voevoda reserves to himself freedom to withdraw if the Swedish foot stumbles. All your treasons will come out, all your machinations. But I have, besides, other letters, – to the King of Sweden, to Wittemberg, to Radzeyovski. You are great and powerful; still I am not sure that it will not be too narrow for you in this Commonwealth, when both kings will prepare a recompense worthy of your treasons."
Prince Boguslav's eyes gleamed with ill-omened light, but after a while he mastered his anger and said, -
"Well, Cavalier! For life or death between us! We have met! You may cause us trouble and much evil, but I say this: No man has dared hitherto to do in this country what you have done. Woe be to you and to yours!"
"I have a sabre to defend myself, and I have something to redeem my own with," answered Kmita.
"You have me as a hostage," said the prince.
And in spite of all his anger he breathed calmly; he understood one thing at this moment, that in no case was his life threatened, – that his person was too much needed by Kmita.
Then they went again at a trot, and after an hour's ride they saw two horsemen, each of whom led a pair of packhorses. They were Kmita's men sent in advance from Pilvishki.
"What is the matter?" asked Kmita.
"The horses are terribly tired, for we have not rested yet."
"We shall rest right away!"
"There is a cabin at the turn, maybe 'tis a public house."
"Let the sergeant push on to prepare oats. Public house or not, we must halt."
"According to order, Commander."
Soroka gave reins to the horses, and they followed him slowly. Kmita rode at one side of the prince, Lubyenyets at the other. Boguslav had become completely calm and quiet; he did not draw Pan Andrei into further conversation. He seemed to be exhausted by the journey, or by the position in which he found himself, and dropping his head somewhat on his breast, closed his eyes. Still from time to time he cast a side look now at Kmita, now at Lubyenyets, who held the reins of the horse, as if studying to discover who would be the easier to overturn so as to wrest himself free.
They approached the building situated on the roadside at a bulge of the forest. It was not a public house, but a forge and a wheelwright-shop, in which those going by the road stopped to shoe their horses and mend their wagons. Between the forge and the road there was a small open area, sparsely covered with trampled grass; fragments of wagons and broken wheels lay thrown here and there on that place, but there were no travellers. Soroka's horses stood tied to a post. Soroka himself was talking before the forge to the blacksmith, a Tartar, and two of his assistants.
"We shall not have an over-abundant repast," said the prince; "there is nothing to be had here."
"We have food and spirits with us," answered Kmita.
"That is well! We shall need strength."
They halted. Kmita thrust his pistol behind his belt, sprang from the saddle, and giving his horse to Soroka, seized again the reins of the prince's horse, which however Lubyenyets had not let go from his hand on the other side.
"Your highness will dismount!" said Kmita.
"Why is that? I will eat and drink in the saddle," said the prince, bending down.
"I beg you to come to the ground!" said Kmita, threateningly.
"But into the ground with you!" cried the prince, with a terrible voice; and drawing with the quickness of lightning the pistol from Kmita's belt, he thundered into his very face.
"Jesus, Mary!" cried Kmita.
At this moment the horse under the prince struck with spurs reared so that he stood almost erect; the prince turned like a snake in the saddle toward Lubyenyets, and with all the strength of his powerful arm struck him with the pistol between the eyes.
Lubyenyets roared terribly and fell from the horse.
Before the others could understand what had happened, before they had drawn breath, before the cry of fright had died on their lips, Boguslav scattered them as a storm would have done, rushed from the square to the road, and shot on like a whirlwind toward Pilvishki.
"Seize him! Hold him! Kill him!" cried wild voices.
Three soldiers who were sitting yet on the horses rushed after him; but Soroka seized a musket standing at the wall, and aimed at the fleeing man, or rather at his horse.
The horse stretched out like a deer, and moved forward like an arrow urged from the string. The shot thundered. Soroka rushed through the smoke for a better view of what he had done; he shaded his eyes with his hand, gazed awhile, and cried at last, -
"Missed!"
At this moment Boguslav disappeared beyond the bend, and after him vanished the pursuers.
Then Soroka turned to the blacksmith and his assistants, who were looking up to that moment with dumb astonishment at what had happened, and cried, -
"Water!"
The blacksmith ran to draw water, and Soroka knelt near Pan Andrei, who was lying motionless. Kmita's face was covered with powder from the discharge, and with drops of blood; his eyes were closed, his left brow and left temple were blackened. The sergeant began first to feel lightly with his fingers the head of his colonel.
"His head is sound."
But Kmita gave no signs of life, and blood came abundantly from his face. The blacksmith's assistants brought a bucket of water and a cloth. Soroka, with equal deliberation and care, began to wipe Kmita's face.
Finally the wound appeared from under the blood and blackness. The ball had opened Kmita's left cheek deeply, and had carried away the end of his ear. Soroka examined to see if his cheek-bone were broken.
After a while he convinced himself that it was not, and drew a long breath. Kmita, under the influence of cold water and pain, began to give signs of life. His face quivered, his breast heaved with breath.
"He is alive! – nothing! he will be unharmed," cried Soroka, joyfully; and a tear rolled down the murderous face of the sergeant.
Meanwhile at the turn of the road appeared Biloüs, one of the three soldiers who had followed the prince.
"Well, what?" called Soroka.
The soldier shook his head. "Nothing!"
"Will the others return soon?"
"The others will not return."
With trembling hands the sergeant laid Kmita's head on the threshold of the forge, and sprang to his feet. "How is that?"
"Sergeant, that prince is a wizard! Zavratynski caught up first, for he had the best horse, and because the prince let him catch up. Before our eyes Boguslav snatched the sabre from his hand and thrust him through. We had barely to cry out. Vitkovski was next, and sprang to help; and him this Radzivill cut down before my eyes, as if a thunderbolt had struck him. He did not give a sound. I did not wait my turn. Sergeant, the prince is ready to come back here."
"There is nothing in this place for us," said Soroka. "To horse!"
That moment they began to make a stretcher between the horses for Kmita. Two of the soldiers, at the command of Soroka, stood with muskets on the road, fearing the return of the terrible man.
But Prince Boguslav, convinced that Kmita was not alive, rode quietly to Pilvishki. About dark he was met by a whole detachment of horsemen sent out by Patterson, whom the absence of the prince had disturbed for some time. The officer, on seeing the prince, galloped to him, -
"Your highness, we did not know-"
"That is nothing!" interrupted Prince Boguslav. "I was riding this horse in the company of that cavalier, of whom I bought him."
And after a while he added: "I paid him well."
CHAPTER XXVIII
The trusty Soroka carried his colonel through the deep forest, not knowing himself what to begin, whither to go or to turn.
Kmita was not only wounded, but stunned by the shot. Soroka from time to time moistened the piece of cloth in a bucket hanging by the horse, and washed his face; at times he halted to take fresh water from the streams and forest ponds; but neither halts nor the movement of the horse could restore at once consciousness to Pan Andrei, and he lay as if dead, till the soldiers going with him, and less experienced in the matter of wounds than Soroka, began to be alarmed for the life of their colonel.
"He is alive," answered Soroka; "in three days he will be on horseback like any of us."
In fact, an hour later, Kmita opened his eyes; but from his mouth came forth one word only, -
"Drink!"
Soroka held a cup of pure water to his lips; but it seemed that to open his mouth caused Pan Andrei unendurable pain, and he was unable to drink. But he did not lose consciousness: he asked for nothing, apparently remembered nothing; his eyes were wide open, and he gazed, without attention, toward the depth of the forest, on the streaks of blue sky visible through the dense branches above their heads, and at his comrades, like a man roused from sleep, or like one recovered from drunkenness, and permitted Soroka to take care of him without saying a word, – nay, the cold water with which the sergeant washed the wound seemed to give him pleasure, for at times his eyes smiled. But Soroka comforted him, -
"To-morrow the dizziness will pass, Colonel; God grant recovery."
In fact, dizziness began to disappear toward evening; for just before the setting of the sun Kmita seemed more self-possessed and asked on a sudden, "What noise is that?"
"What noise? There is none," answered Soroka.
Apparently the noise was only in the head of Pan Andrei, for the evening was calm. The setting sun, piercing the gloom with its slanting rays, filled with golden glitter the forest darkness, and lighted the red trunks of the pine-trees. There was no wind, and only here and there, from hazel, birch, and hornbeam trees leaves dropped to the ground, or timid beasts made slight rustle in fleeing to the depths of the forest in front of the horsemen.
The evening was cool; but evidently fever had begun to attack Pan Andrei, for he repeated, -
"Your highness, it is life or death between us!"
At last it became dark altogether, and Soroka was thinking of a night camp; but because they had entered a damp forest and the ground began to yield under the hoofs of their horses, they continued to ride in order to reach high and dry places.
They rode one hour and a second without being able to pass the swamp. Meanwhile it was growing lighter, for the moon had risen. Suddenly Soroka, who was in advance, sprang from the saddle and began to look carefully at the ground.
"Horses have passed this way," said he, at sight of tracks in the soft earth.
"Who could have passed, when there is no road?" asked one of the soldiers supporting Pan Kmita.
"But there are tracks, and a whole crowd of them! Look here between the pines, – as evident as on the palm of the hand!"
"Perhaps cattle have passed."
"Impossible. It is not the time of forest pastures; horse-hoofs are clearly to be seen, somebody must have passed. It would be well to find even a forester's cabin."
"Let us follow the trail."
"Let us ride forward!"
Soroka mounted again and rode on. Horses' tracks in the turfy ground were more distinct; and some of them, as far as could be seen in the light of the moon, seemed quite fresh. Still the horses sank to their knees, and beyond. The soldiers were afraid that they could not wade through, or would come to some deeper quagmire; when, at the end of half an hour, the odor of smoke and rosin came to their nostrils.
"There must be a pitch-clearing here," said Soroka.
"Yes, sparks are to be seen," said a soldier.
And really in the distance appeared a line of reddish smoke, filled with flame, around which were dancing the sparks of a fire burning under the ground.
When they had approached, the soldiers saw a cabin, a well, and a strong shed built of pine logs. The horses, wearied from the road, began to neigh; frequent neighing answered them from under the shed, and at the same time there stood before the riders some kind of a figure, dressed in sheepskin, wool outward.
"Are there many horses?" asked the man in the sheepskin.
"Is this a pitch-factory?" inquired Soroka.
"What kind of people are ye? Where do ye come from?" asked the pitch-maker, in a voice in which astonishment and alarm were evident.
"Never fear!" answered Soroka; "we are not robbers."
"Go your own way; there is nothing for you here."
"Shut thy mouth, and guide us to the house since we ask. Seest not, scoundrel, that we are taking a wounded man?"
"What kind of people are ye?"
"Be quick, or we answer from guns. It will be better for thee to hurry. Take us to the house; if not, we will cook thee in thy own pitch."
"I cannot defend myself alone, but there will be more of us. Ye will lay down your lives here."
"There will be more of us too; lead on!"
"Go on yourselves; it is not my affair."
"What thou hast to eat, give us, and gorailka. We are carrying a man who will pay."
"If he leaves here alive."
Thus conversing, they entered the cabin; a fire was burning in the chimney, and from pots, hanging by the handles, came the odor of boiling meat. The cabin was quite large. Soroka saw at the walls six wooden beds, covered thickly with sheepskins.
"This is the resort of some company," muttered he to his comrades. "Prime your guns and watch well. Take care of this scoundrel, let him not slip away. The owners sleep outside to-night, for we shall not leave the house."
"The men will not come to-day," said the pitch-maker.
"That is better, for we shall not quarrel about room, and to-morrow we will go on," replied Soroka; "but now dish the meat, for we are hungry, and spare no oats on the horses."
"Where can oats be found here, great mighty soldiers?"
"We heard horses under the shed, so there must be oats; thou dost not feed them with pitch."
"They are not my horses."
"Whether they are yours or not, they must eat as well as ours. Hurry, man, hurry! if thy skin is dear to thee!"
The pitch-maker said nothing. The soldiers entered the house, placed the sleeping Kmita on a bed, and sat down to supper. They ate eagerly the boiled meat and cabbage, a large kettle of which was in the chimney. There was millet also, and in a room at the side of the cabin Soroka found a large decanter of spirits.
He merely strengthened himself with it slightly, and gave none to the soldiers, for he had determined to hold it in reserve for the night. This empty house with six beds for men, and a shed in which a band of horses were neighing, seemed to him strange and suspicious. He judged simply that this was a robbers' retreat, especially since in the room from which he brought the decanter he found many weapons hanging on the wall, and a keg of powder, with various furniture, evidently plundered from noble houses. In case the absent occupants of the cabin returned, it was impossible to expect from them not merely hospitality, but even mercy. Soroka therefore resolved to hold the house with armed hand, and maintain himself in it by superior force or negotiations.
This was imperative also in view of the health of Pan Kmita, for whom a journey might be fatal, and in view of the safety of all.
Soroka was a trained and seasoned soldier, to whom one feeling was foreign, – the feeling of fear. Still in that moment, at thought of Prince Boguslav, fear seized him. Having been for long years in the service of Kmita, he had blind faith, not only in the valor, but the fortune of the man; he had seen more than once deeds of his which in daring surpassed every measure, and touched almost on madness, but which still succeeded and passed without harm. With Kmita he had gone through the "raids" on Hovanski; had taken part in all the surprises, attacks, fights, and onsets, and had come to the conviction that Pan Andrei could do all things, succeed in all things, come out of every chaos, and destroy whomsoever he wished. Kmita therefore was for him the highest impersonation of power and fortune, – but this time he had met his match seemingly, nay, he had met his superior. How was this? One man carried away, without weapons, and in Kmita's hands, had freed himself from those hands; not only that, he had overthrown Kmita, conquered his soldiers, and terrified them so that they ran away in fear of his return. That was a wonder of wonders, and Soroka lost his head pondering over it. To his thinking, anything might come to pass in the world rather than this, that a man might be found who could ride over Kmita.
"Has our fortune then ended?" muttered he to himself, gazing around in wonder.
It was not long since with eyes shut he followed Pan Kmita to Hovanski's quarters surrounded by eighty thousand men; now at the thought of that long-haired prince with lady's eyes and a painted face, superstitious terror seized him, and he knew not what to do. The thought alarmed him, that to-morrow or the next day he would have to travel on highways where the terrible prince himself or his pursuers might meet him. This was the reason why he had gone from the road to the dense forest, and at present wished to stay in that cabin until pursuers were deluded and wearied.
But since even that hiding-place did not seem to him safe for other reasons, he wished to discover what course to take; therefore he ordered the soldiers to stand guard at the door and the windows, and said to the pitch-maker, -
"Here, man, take a lantern and come with me."
"I can light the great mighty lord only with a pitch-torch, for we have no lantern."
"Then light the torch; if thou burn the shed and the horses, it is all one to me."
After such words a lantern was found right away. Soroka commanded the fellow to go ahead, and followed himself with a pistol in his hand.
"Who live in this cabin?" asked he on the road.
"Men live here."
"What are their names?"
"That is not free for me to say."
"It seems to me, fellow, that thou'lt get a bullet in thy head."
"My master," answered the pitch-maker, "if I had told in a lie any kind of name, you would have to be satisfied."
"True! But are there many of those men?"
"There is an old one, two sons, and two servants."
"Are they nobles?"
"Surely nobles."
"Do they live here?"
"Sometimes here, and sometimes God knows where."
"But the horses, whence are they?"
"God knows whence they bring them."
"Tell the truth; do thy masters not rob on the highway?"
"Do I know? It seems to me they take horses, but whose, – that's not on my head."
"What do they do with the horses?"
"Sometimes they take ten or twelve of them, as many as there are, and drive them away, but whither I know not."
Thus conversing, they reached the shed, from which was heard the snorting of horses.
"Hold the light," said Soroka.
The fellow raised the lantern, and threw light on the horses standing in a row at the wall. Soroka examined them one after another with the eye of a specialist, shook his head, smacked his lips, and said, -
"The late Pan Zend would have rejoiced. There are Polish and Muscovite horses here, – there is a Wallachian, a German, – a mare. Fine horses! What dost thou give them to eat?"
"Not to lie, my master, I sowed two fields with oats in springtime."
"Then thy masters have been handling horses since spring?"
"No, but they sent a servant to me with a command."
"Then art thou theirs?"
"I was till they went to the war."
"What war?"
"Do I know? They went far away last year, and came back in the summer."
"Whose art thou now?"
"These are the king's forests."
"Who put thee here to make pitch?"
"The royal forester, a relative of these men, who also brought horses with them; but since he went away once with them, he has not come back."
"And do guests come to these men?"
"Nobody comes here, for there are swamps around, and only one road. It is a wonder to me that ye could come, my master; for whoso does not strike the road, will be drawn in by the swamp."
Soroka wanted to answer that he knew these woods and the road very well; but after a moment's thought he determined that silence was better, and inquired, -
"Are these woods very great?"
The fellow did not understand the question. "How is that?"
"Do they go far?"
"Oh! who has gone through them? Where one ends another begins, and God knows where they are not; I have never been in that place."
"Very well!" said Soroka.
Then he ordered the man to go back to the cabin, and followed himself.
On the way he was pondering over what he should do, and hesitated. On one hand the wish came to him to take the horses while the cabin-dwellers were gone, and flee with this plunder. The booty was precious, and the horses pleased the old soldier's heart greatly; but after a while he overcame the temptation. To take them was easy, but what to do further. Swamps all around, one egress, – how hit upon that? Chance had served him once, but perhaps it would not a second time. To follow the trail of hoofs was useless, for the cabin-dwellers had surely wit enough to make by design false and treacherous trails leading straight into quagmires. Soroka knew clearly the methods of men who steal horses, and of those who take booty.
He thought awhile, therefore, and meditated; all at once he struck his head with his fist, -
"I am a fool!" muttered he. "I'll take the fellow on a rope, and make him lead me to the highway."
Barely had he uttered the last word when he shuddered, "To the highway? But that prince will be there, and pursuit. To lose fifteen horses!" said the old fox to himself, with as much sorrow as if he had cared for the beasts from their colthood. "It must be that our fortune is ended. We must stay in the cabin till Pan Kmita recovers, – stay with consent of the owners or without their consent; and what will come later, that is work for the colonel's head."
Thus meditating, he returned to the cabin. The watchful soldiers were standing at the door, and though they saw a lantern shining in the dark from a distance, – the same lantern with which Soroka and the pitch-maker had gone out, – still they forced them to tell who they were before they let them enter the cabin. Soroka ordered his soldiers to change the watch about midnight, and threw himself down on the plank bed beside Kmita.
It had become quiet in the cabin; only the crickets raised their usual music in the adjoining closet, and the mice gnawed from moment to moment among the rubbish piled up there. The sick man woke at intervals and seemed to have dreams in his fever, for to Soroka's ears came the disconnected words, -
"Gracious king, pardon-Those men are traitors-I will tell all their secrets-The Commonwealth is a red cloth-Well, I have you, worthy prince-Hold him! – Gracious king, this way, for there is treason!"
Soroka rose on the bed and listened; but the sick man, when he had screamed once and a second time, fell asleep, and then woke and cried, -
"Olenka, Olenka, be not angry!"
About midnight he grew perfectly calm and slept soundly. Soroka also began to slumber; but soon a gentle knocking at the door of the cabin roused him.
The watchful soldier opened his eyes at once, and springing to his feet went out.
