As G.o.d is dear to me, must I run mad?"

"What witch are you speaking of?"

"Why, Horpyna! I know that ba.s.s-viol well."

Zagloba stood up suddenly from the bench, and began to strike out with his hands like a man who has fallen into deep water and is trying to save himself from drowning.

"By the living G.o.d, be quiet!" said he to Volodyovski. "By G.o.d's wounds, let me ask him!"

The company trembled, so pale was Zagloba, and the perspiration came out on his bald head. He sprang over the bench to Jendzian, and seizing the young fellow by the shoulders, asked in a hoa.r.s.e voice,--

"Who told you that she is near Rashkoff, secreted?"

"Who should tell me? Bogun!"

"Are you mad, fellow?" roared Zagloba, shaking him like a pear-tree.

"What Bogun?"

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake," called Jendzian, "why do you shake me so? Let me go, let me collect my wits, for I am losing my senses. You have turned everything over in my head. What Bogun should there be,--or don't you know him?"

"Speak, or I'll stab you!" shouted Zagloba. "Where did you see Bogun?"

"In Vlodava! What do you want of me?" cried the frightened young man.

"Am I a robber?"

Zagloba lost the thread of his thought, breath failed him, and he fell on the bench panting heavily. Volodyovski came to his aid.

"When did you see Bogun?" asked Volodyovski.

"Three weeks ago."

"Then he is alive?"

"Why shouldn't he be? He told me himself how you split him up, but he has recovered."

"And he told you that the young lady is at Rashkoff?"

"Who else should tell me?"

"Listen, Jendzian! it is a question here of the life of your master and the young lady. Did Bogun himself tell you that she was not in Kieff?"

"My master, how could she be in Kieff when he secreted her at Rashkoff, and told Horpyna on peril of her life not to let her escape? But now he has given me a baton and his ring to go to her; for his wounds opened, and he had to lie down himself, it is unknown for how long."

Further words from Jendzian were interrupted by Zagloba, who sprang from the bench again, and seizing the remnant of his hair with both hands, began to shout like a madman: "My daughter is living,--by G.o.d's wounds, she is living! They didn't kill her in Kieff; she is alive, she is alive, my dearest!"

And the old man stamped with his feet, laughed and sobbed. Finally, he seized Jendzian by the head, pressed him to his bosom and began to kiss him, so that the young fellow lost his head altogether.

"Let me go, my master, for I am stifled! Of course she is alive--G.o.d grant us to go together for her, my master--But, my master!"

"Let him go, let him tell his story, for we don't understand anything yet," said Volodyovski.

"Speak, speak!" cried Zagloba.

"Begin at the beginning, brother," said Pan Longin, on whose mustaches, too, thick dew had settled down.

"Permit me, gentlemen, to draw breath," said Jendzian; "and I will close the window, for those wretches of nightingales are tearing away in the bushes at such a rate that it is impossible to speak."

"Mead!" cried Volodyovski to the servant.

Jendzian closed the window with his usual deliberation, then turned to the company and said; "You will let me sit down, for I am tired."

"Sit down!" said Volodyovski, pouring to him from the decanter borne in by the servant. "Drink with us, for you deserve it for the news which you bring. If you will only speak as soon as possible!"

"Good mead!" said he, raising the gla.s.s toward the light.

"May you be split! will you talk?" shouted Zagloba.

"You are angry at once, my master! I will talk if you wish; it is for you to command and me to obey, that's why I am a servant. But I see that I must start from the beginning and tell everything in detail."

"Speak from the beginning!"

"You remember, gentlemen, how the news of the taking of Bar came; how we thought then that the young lady was lost? So I returned to the Jendzians,--to my parents and my grandfather, who is now ninety years old--I speak correctly--no! ninety-and-one."

"May he be nine hundred!" burst out Zagloba.

"May G.o.d give him as many years as possible! I thank you, my master, for the kind word. So I returned home to visit my parents, as I by the a.s.sistance of G.o.d had pa.s.sed the robbers; for as you know, the Cossacks took me up in Chigirin last year, and considered me one of themselves because I nursed Bogun when wounded, and arrived at great intimacy with him; and at the same time I collected some little from those criminals,--some silver and precious stones."

"We know, we know!" said Volodyovski.

"Well, I reached my parents, who were glad to see me, and couldn't believe their eyes when I showed them all I had collected. I had to swear to my grandfather that I had come by it honestly. Then they were glad; for you must know that they have a lawsuit with the Yavorskis about a pear-tree which stands on the line between them,--half its branches are on the land of the Yavorskis, and half on ours. Now the Yavorskis shake the tree and our pears fall, and many of them go to them. They stick to it that those in the middle are theirs, and we--"

"Don't bring me to anger, fellow!" interrupted Zagloba, "and don't speak of that which does not belong to the story!"

"First, with your pardon, my master, I am no fellow, but a n.o.ble, though a poor one, and with an escutcheon as well as you, as Pan Volodyovski and Podbipienta, friends of Pan Skshetuski, will tell you; and I repeat that this lawsuit has lasted fifty years."

"Dear little fish!" said Podbipienta, sweetly; "but tell us about Bogun, not about pear-trees."

"Of Bogun?" said Jendzian. "Well, let it be about Bogun. That Bogun thinks, my master, that he has not a more faithful friend and servant than me, though he struck me in Chigirin; for it is true I nursed him, took care of him, when the Kurtsevichi had wounded him. I lied then when I said I did not like my master's service and preferred to be with the Cossacks, for there was more profit among them; and he believed me.

Why shouldn't he believe me when I brought him to health? Therefore he took a wonderful fancy to me, and what is true, rewarded me most liberally, not knowing that I had sworn to have vengeance on him for the wrong he had done me in Chigirin; and if I did not stab him at once, it was only because it is not proper for a n.o.ble to stab an enemy lying in bed, as he would stick a pig."

"Well, well," said Volodyovski, "we know that too, but how did you find him this time?"

"It was this way: When we had pushed the Yavorskis to the wall (they will have to go out with packs on their backs, it cannot be otherwise), I thought: 'Well, it is time for me to look for Bogun and pay him for the wrong he did me.' I left my parents in secret, and my grandfather; and he (there is good metal in him) said: 'If you have taken an oath, then go; if not, you will be a fool.' I went, for I thought to myself besides: 'When I find Bogun maybe I shall learn something about the lady, if she is alive; and afterward when I shoot him and go to my master with the news, that too will not be without a reward.'"

"Certainly it will not; and we will reward you also," said Volodyovski.

"And from me, brother, you will have a horse with trappings," added Podbipienta.

"I thank you most kindly," said the delighted young man; "a present is a fitting return for good news, and I won't drink away what I get from anybody--"