King Stakh's Wild Hunt

Chapter The Fifth

Two days later I was approaching Dubatoŭk's house. I did not want to go there, but my hostess had said: “You must go! It's my order. I won't be afraid here.”

I was to follow a grass-covered lane in a south-west direction from the house. Along both sides of this path stood a park as gloomy as a forest. The lane led to a fence where at one place an iron rod was missing and I could creep through it (this was Janoŭskaja's secret which she had confided to me). Therefore I didn't have to go north along the lane I had arrived on and walk round the whole park to reach the road leading to Dubatoŭk's house. I crept through the hole and came out onto level land. To the left and straight ahead of me there was boundless heather waste land with sparse groups of trees, to the right some undergrowth, behind it a full little river like an eye, then a swampy forest, and farther on, hopeless quagmire. Somewhere very far from the heather waste land, tree-tops could be seen, probably Dubatoŭk's estate.

I walked slowly through the waste land, only from time to time guessing where my path lay. And though the autumn field was a gloomy one and not inviting, though an enormous raven twice flew overhead — after Marsh Firs it was pleasant here. Everything all around was familiar: the moss on the marsh mounds, the dry heather among the tiny mouse dragging white down from a tall thistle to the nest it was preparing for winter.

I reached Dubatoŭk's estate only towards dusk, the windows of his house were already brightly lit. It was a most ordinary house, the usual thing among the gentry: an old, low building with small windows. It was shingle-roofed, freshly whitewashed, had a porch, with four columns. The provincial architect had very likely been unaware of the well-known secret and therefore the columns seemed to bulge in the middle and looked like little barrels. The house was surrounded by old, enormous, almost leafless lindens. Behind the house there was a large orchard, and behind it a wide piece of ploughed land.

I was late apparently, for noisy voices were already thundering throughout the house. I was met warmly, even ardently.

“Goodness gracious! Holy Martyrs!” Dubatoŭk shouted. “You've come after all, the prodigal son has come! Come to the table! Antoś, you lout, where are you? Have you got two left paws, or what? A welcoming drink for my guest! Missed meeting him, you devils, didn't salute him, didn't give him a drink at the door! Oh! You blockheads!”

About ten people were sitting at the table, all men. Among them I knew only Śvieciłovič, Aleś Varona and Stachoŭski. Almost all of them were already quite drunk, but for some reason they examined me with increased interest. The table was bursting with viands: Dubatoŭk was, evidently, of the well-to-do local gentry. His wealth, however, was relative. Of food and drink there was plenty, but the rooms through which I went showed no splendour. The walls were whitewashed, the shutters were covered with fretwork and brightly painted, the furniture was not very beautiful, but as if to make up for that, very heavy. Old-fashioned things stared o.ut from every corner. In the dining-room there was nothing but a wide oak table, stools covered with a green, silky linen, two Dantzig armchairs covered with golden Morocca, and a triple mirror in a brown frame, depicting a city with church domes. The gaudily dressed guests viewed me with curiosity.

“Why are you staring?” Dubatoŭk shouted. “Have you never seen a man from the capital, you bears? Come, food for the guest! Put food on his plate, whatever is to your taste.”

The hairy jaws began to smile, the paws began to move. Soon on my plate lay an enormous goose with cranberry jam, the leg of a turkey with apples, pickled mushrooms, a dozen kuldoons, and from all sides came:

“And here are doughnuts and mushrooms with garlic… here is a piece of ham from a wild boar, strongly peppered, burns like fire. I swear to it by the memory of my mother… take it. And this is wonderful. And this here is something exceptional…”

“This is how we Belarusians treat our guests,” the host shouted on seeing my confusion, and he laughed boisterously.

In front of me food was piled high. I tried to protest, but that called forth such an outburst of indignation (one of the guests even began to shed tears;) truth to tell, he was in a blue haze, and I yielded.

The lout Antoś brought me a glass of vodka on a tray, for a start. I am not afraid of intoxicating liquors, but seeing it I got scared. There was no less than a bottle of some yellow transparent liquid in the glass.

“I couldn't!”

“What do you mean you couldn't? Only a virgin wench can't, but even she quickly agrees.”

“It's too much, Mr. Dubatoŭk.”

“When there are three wives in a hut, that's too much, and at that not for everyone… Oh! Boys, we aren't respected. Ask the dear guest to…”

“Don't offend us… and drink…” The guests roared like bears. I was forced to drink. The liquid burned my inners, fiery circles swam before my eyes, but I kept steady, didn't even make a wry face.

“There's a man for you!” Dubatoŭk praised.

“What's this?” I asked as I swallowed down a big piece of ham.

“Oho! The Starka, old Polish vodka, even the Ukrainian vodka Spatykach; but our “Tris Deviniris” you do not know. In Lithuanian[7], brother, it is “Thrice Nine” — a vodka made of 27 herbs. This secret we wormed out from the Lithuanians hundreds of years ago. Now the Lithuanians themselves have forgotten it, but we still remember. Drink to your heart's content, then I'll treat you to some mead.”

“And what's this?” I wanted to know, sticking my fork into something dark on my plate.

“That is salmon lips in sweetened vinegar. Eat, brother, refresh yourself. This is food for giants. Our forefathers, may they rest in peace, were not fools. Eat, don't be lazy, and eat!”

And within a minute, having forgotten that he had recommended me the “lips”, he shouted:

“No, brother, you won't leave me without having tasted cold pasties stuffed with goose liver. Antoś!..”

Antoś came over with the pasties. I tried to refuse.

“Go down on your knees at the feet of our guest. Beat your foolish head against the floor, beg him, because as a guest he is offending us.”

Soon I, too, was in a good state. Everyone around was screaming and singing. Dubatoŭk was hanging on to my shoulder, mumbling something, but I paid no attention. The room was beginning to swim.

someone howled. And suddenly I remembered that house far away in the fir park, the trees overgrown with moss, the fireplace, the melancholy figure near it. I felt sick at heart. “I'm a drunken pig,” I kept repeating, “we mustn't live on the fat of the land when someone else is in trouble.” So deep was my pity for her that I was on the verge of tears… and immediately I became sober.

The guests were beginning to leave the table.

“Gentlemen,” Dubatoŭk said, “take a little walk, the table has to be refreshed.”

Good God, this had been but the beginning! And everyone was already drunk, as drunk as pigs. It was 8 o'clock in the evening. That was unimportant. It was still early. I knew that having instantly become sober, I wouldn't get drunk again today, nevertheless I decided to drink with caution: I might get stuck in the quagmire — then there would be hell to pay.

We rested, talked. Dubatoŭk showed us a fine collection of weapons. He praised an old sabre very highly, one that he had begged Raman Janoŭski to give him. He said that the Russian damask steel sword could cut through a plate, the Polish “Zygmuntowka” — quite a thick nail, but this one, ours, was a secret that the Tartars had brought with them in the time of Vitaŭt. And inside it was mercury, the blow such that it could cleave not only a copper plate, but a thick block. Nobody believed him; he shouted, ordered Antoś to bring a block. Antoś brought in a short block, the thickness of three human necks, and placed it on the floor.

All grew quiet. Dubatoŭk took aim, grinned, baring his teeth, and suddenly the sabre described an almost invisible half-circle in the air.

Dubatoŭk let out a deep guttural sound, drew the sabre towards himself, and split the block obliquely. He waved his wrist in the air. All kept silent.

“That's the way to do it!” he shouted at us.

I managed at this time to get Śvieciłovič out onto the porch and tell him of all that had occurred at Marsh Firs.

He became very excited, said that he had previously heard something about it, but had not quite believed it.

“And now you believe it?”

“I believe you,” he said simply. “And I promise that while I am alive, not a single hair of her head shall be hurt. Be he devil or ghost or whatever else, I'll stand in his way.”

We arranged to investigate things together, that he would come to see me in a couple of days and tell me all that he had learned in the vicinity of the village (various rumours and gossip might be of definite use). We decided not to get Dubatoŭk involved in this affair as yet: the old man could get very excited and act as was his habit in his devil-may-care way.

Supper continued. We were again treated to food, again to drink. I noticed that Dubatoŭk was filling our wine glasses, both his and mine, equally, and as he drank he kept looking at me testingly. Whenever I drank a glass of wine a look of satisfaction appeared on his face. He was in a way egging me on into a competition. And during intervals he would offer either pancakes with a sauce made of flour, meat, fat, smoked ham and ribs, or else those unusual “shtoniki” — meat drowning in fat, such as saints had never eaten. He was evidently studying me from every angle. I drank but did not get drunk.

The rest, excluding Śvieciłovič, were already in the sort of state when nobody listens to anybody, when one drinks, another tells some love story, a third is doing all he can to make somebody pay attention to some colourful fact in his biography, and a fourth is recalling what a good woman his mother had been, while he, such a drunkard, such a scoundrel, is profaning her memory, living such a dissolute life.

The singing went on:

Another man drawled his song:

Someone raised his head from the table and sang his own version of the last line:

Everybody burst out laughing.

In the meantime Dubatoŭk shook his head as if to chase off his stupor, got up and announced:

“At last I've found a real man among the young aristocrats. He has drunk more than I have, I've become tipsy, but he's fresh, as fresh as a bush in the rain. None of you here would have taken in half as much. Nine of you would have fallen flat on your faces, while the tenth would have mooed like a calf. This is a man! Him and only him, would I gladly have accepted for a friend in my youth.”

Cries from everybody “Glory! Glory!”. Varona alone looked at me bitingly and gloomily. They drank to my health, to the gentry — the salt of the earth, to my future wife.

When the enthusiasm had abated somewhat, Dubatoŭk looked me in the eyes and asked confidentially:

“Getting married?”

I shook my head uncertainly, although I understood very well what he was driving at. He was certain about it, evidently, whereas I had no wish to convince him of the reverse. I liked the old man, he was drunk and might be offended if I openly told him that I hadn't ever thought about it and did not even wish to think about it.

“She's beautiful,” Dubatoŭk continued and sighed, looking at me sadly.

“Who?” I asked.

“My ward.”

Things had gone too far, and to pretend any further was impossible, for otherwise it would have turned out that I was compromising the girl.

“I haven't thought about it,” I said. “But even if I had thought about it, it doesn't depend on me alone. First of all it is necessary to ask her.”

“You are avoiding an answer,” suddenly hissed Varona through his teeth. (I hadn't suspected that he was listening to our quiet conversation.) “You do not want to speak frankly and directly with serious people. You don't want to say that you are after money and a wife of noble birth.”

I was convulsed with pain. Trying to keep calm, I answered:

“I have no intention of getting married. And I consider speaking about a girl in a drunken company of men does no honour to a true gentleman. Stop talking, Varona, don't attract the attention of drunken people to an innocent girl, don't taint her reputation, and I, although it is a terrible insult, forgive you.”

“Ha, ha!” exclaimed Varona. “He forgives me. This pig, this cad.”

“Stop it!” I shouted. “Be quiet! Just think how you are insulting her with each one of your words!”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Dubatoŭk tried to calm us. “Varona, you are drunk.”

“Think yourself. I once allowed an offence of yours to pass by unnoticed, but in future I won't!”

“You scoundrel!”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” I shouted so loudly that even those who were sleeping raised their heads from the table. “I'll force you to shut up!”

A knife from the table whisked through the air and fell flat on my hand. I jumped up from my seat, grabbed Varona by the chest and shook him. At the same moment Dubatoŭk grabbed us by the shoulders and separated us, shoving Varona aside.

“Shame on you, Aleś!” Dubatoŭk thundered. “You pup… Make peace immediately!”

“No, wait a moment, Dubatoŭk. This is serious. It's too late. My honour has been insulted,” Varona roared.

“And my honour as host. Who will now come to visit me? Everyone will say that Dubatoŭk treats his guests to duels instead of good vodka.”

“Don't care a straw,” Varona shouted, baring his teeth.

Without uttering a word, Dubatoŭk slapped him in the face.

“Now you will first fight me with a sabre, for he only took hold of you by the chest,” he hissed so loudly that many started. “I shall do what has to be done for my guest to leave here safe and sound.”

“You're mistaken,” Varona retorted calmly. “He who first offended is first in line. And then I'll fight with you, kill me if you will.”

“Aleś,” Dubatoŭk almost begged him, “Don't bring shame on my house.”

“He shall fight with me,” Varona said firmly.

“Oh well, then,” our host unexpectedly agreed. “It does not matter, Mr, Biełarecki. Be courageous. This pig is so drunk that he can't hold a pistol. I think I'll stand beside you, and that will be the safest place.”

“Don't worry,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder. “It's unnecessary. I'm not afraid. You be brave, too.”

Varona stared at me with his deadly black eyes.

“I haven't yet finished. We shan't shoot in the garden, for otherwise this dandy will escape. And not tomorrow, for otherwise he will leave. We shall shoot here and now, in the empty room near the shed. And three bullets each. In the dark.”

Dubatoŭk made a protesting gesture, but a reckless cold fury had already crept into my heart. It was all the same to me now, I hated this man, forgot Janoŭskaja, my work, even myself.

“I submit to your will,” I answered caustically. “But won't you make use of the darkness to run away from me? However, as you like.”

“You lion cub!” I heard Dubatoŭk's broken voice.

I glanced at him and was shocked. It was pitiful to look at the old man. His face was distorted with fear, his eyes expressed an inhuman fear and shame, such shame that death would be better. He was almost in tears. He did not even look at me, he just turned about and waved his hand.

The shed was attached to the house. It was an enormous room with grey moss in the grooves of walls. Spiders' webs resembling an entangled delivery of linen, hung down from the straw roof and shook at our steps. Two young gentlemen carried candles and accompanied us into a room near the shed, a room entirely empty, with grey, wet plastering and without any windows. It smelled of mice and of abominable desolation.

To be quite honest, I was afraid, very much afraid. My state could be compared with that of a bull in the slaughter-house or of a man in the dentist's chair. It was nasty and vile, but impossible to run away.

“Well, what'll happen if he shoots me in the stomach? Oh! That'll be awful! If I could only hide somewhere!”

I don't know why, but I was terribly afraid of being wounded in the stomach. And after I had eaten so well!

I was so depressed and disgusted that I could hardly keep from bellowing, but I took myself in hand in time and glanced at Varona. He was standing with his seconds against the opposite wall, holding his left hand in the pocket of his black dress-coat, and in his right hand, held downward, was the gun for the duel. Two other guns were put in his pockets. His dry yellow face expressed disgust, but was calm. I don't know whether I could have said the same of myself.

My two seconds (one of them was Dubatoŭk) gave me, too, a pistol, and pushed two others into my pockets — I noticed nothing. I was looking only at the face of the man I had to kill, for otherwise he would kill me. I looked at him with an inexplicable avidity, as if wishing to comprehend why he wanted to kill me, why he hated me.

“And why should I kill him?” I thought, as if only I were holding a pistol. “No, I must not kill him. But that is not the point. The point is that human neck, such a thin and very weak neck, which it is so easy to wring.” I also had no wish to die and therefore decided that Varona should shoot three times and that should be the end of the duel.

The seconds left, leaving us alone in the room and closed the door. We found ourselves in pitch darkness. Soon the voice of one of Va-rona's seconds was heard:

“Begin!”

With my left foot I made two “steps” to the side, and then carefully put my foot back into its former place. To my surprise, all my excitement had passed, I acted as if automatically,

but so wisely and quickly as I could never have done had my brain been controlling my actions. Not with my hearing, but rather with my skin, did I feel Varona's presence in the room, there at the other wall.

We kept silent. Now all depended on our self-control.

A flash lit up the room. Varona's nerves had failed him. The bullet whizzed past somewhere to the left of me and rattled against the wall. I could have fired at this very moment, for during the flash I saw where Varona was. But I did not shoot. I only felt the place where the bullet had struck. I don't know why I did that. And I remained standing in the very same place.

Varona, evidently, could not even have supposed that I'd twice act in the same way. I could hear his excited hoarse breathing.

Varona's second shot resounded. And again I did not shoot. However, I no longer had the will-power to stand motionless, all the more so because I heard Varona beginning to steal along the wall in my direction.

My nerves gave way, I also began to move carefully. The darkness looked at me with the barrels of a thousand pistols. There might be a barrel at any step, I could stumble on it with my belly, all the more so that I had lost the whereabouts of my enemy and couldn't say where the door was and where the wall.

I stood still and listened. At this moment something forced me to throw myself down sidewards on the floor.

A shot rang right over my head, it even seemed that the hair on my head had been moved by it.

But I still had three bullets. For a moment a wild feeling of gladness took hold of me, but I remembered the fragile human neck and lowered my pistol.

“What's going on there with you?” a voice sounded behind the door. “Only one of you fired. Has anyone been killed, or not? Fire quickly, stop messing about.”

And then I raised my hand with the pistol, moved it away from the place where Varona had been at the time of the third shot and pressed the trigger. I had to fire at least once, I had to use up at least one bullet. In answer, entirely unexpectedly, a faint groan was heard and the sound of a body falling.

“Quick, over here!” I shouted. “Quick! To my aid! It seems I've killed him!”

A blinding yellow stream of light fell on the floor. When people came into the room, I saw Varona lying stretched out motionless on the floor, his face turned upward. I ran up to him, raised his head. My hands touched something warm and sticky. Varona's face became even yellower.

“Varona! Varona! Wake up! Wake up!”

Dubatoŭk, gloomy and severe, came floating from somewhere, as if from out of a fog. He began fussing over the body lying there, then looked into my eyes and burst out laughing. It seemed to me I had gone mad. I got up and, almost unconscious, took out the second gun from my pocket. The thought crossed my mind that it was very simple to put it at my temple and…

“No more! I can't take any more!”

“Well, but why? What's wrong, young man?” I heard Dubatoŭk's voice. “It wasn't you who insulted him. He wanted to bring disgrace on both you and me. You have two more shots yet. Just look how upset you are! It's all because you're not used to it, because your hands are clean, because you have a conscientious heart. Well, well… but you haven't killed him, not at all. He's been deafened, that's all, like a bull at the slaughter. Look how cleverly you've done him. Shot off a piece of his ear and also ripped off a piece of the skin on his head. No matter, a week or so in bed and he'll be better.”

“I don't need your two shots! I don't want them!” I screamed like a baby, and almost stamped my feet. “I give them to him as a gift!”

My second and some other gentleman whose entire face consisted of an enormous turned-up nose and unshaven chin carried him off somewhere.

“He can have these two shots for himself!”

Only now did I understand what an awful thing it is to kill a person. Better, probably, just to give up the ghost yourself. And not because I was such a saint. Quite another thing if it's a skirmish, in battle, in a burst of fury. While here a dark room and a man who is hiding from you as a rat from a fox-terrier. I fired both pistols right at the wall, threw them down on the ground and left.

After some time, when I entered the room in which the quarrel had taken place, I found the company sitting at table again.

Varona had been put to bed in one of the distant rooms under the care of Dubatoŭk's relatives. I wanted to go home immediately, but they would not let me. Dubatoŭk seated me at his side and said: “It's alright, young man. It's only nerves that are to blame. He's alive. He'll get well. What else do you need? And now he'll know how to behave when he meets real people. Here — drink this… One thing I must say to you, you are a man worthy of the gentry. To be so devilishly cunning, and to wait so courageously for all the three shots — not everyone is able to do that. And it is well that you are so noble — you could have killed him with the two remaining bullets, but you didn't do that. Now my house to its very last cross is grateful to you.”

“But nevertheless it's bad,” said one of the gentlemen. “Such self-control — it's simply not human.”

Dubatoŭk shook his head.

“Varona's to blame, the pig. He picked the quarrel himself, the drunken fool. Who else, besides him, would have thought of screaming about money? You must have heard that he proposed to Nadzieja, and got a refusal for an answer. I'm sure that Mr. Andrej is better provided for than the Janoŭskis are. He has a head on his shoulders, has work and hands, while the last of their family, a woman, — has an entailed estate where one can sit like a dog in the manger and die of hunger sitting on a trunk full of money.”

And he turned to everybody:

“Gentlemen, I depend upon your honour. It seems to me that we should keep silent about what's happened. It does no credit to Varona — to the devil with him, he deserves penal servitude, but neither does it do any credit to you or the girl whose name this fool allowed himself to utter in drunken prattle… Well, and the more so to me. The only one who behaved like a man is Mr. Biełarecki, and he, as a true gentleman, will not talk indiscreetly.”

Everybody agreed. And the guests, apparently, could hold their tongues, for nobody in the district uttered a word about this incident.

When I was leaving, Dubatoŭk detained me on the porch:

“Shall I give you a horse, Andrej?”

I was a good horseman, but now I wanted to take a walk and come to myself somewhat after all the events that had taken place. Therefore I refused.

“Well, as you like…”

I took my way home through the heather waste land. It was already the dead of night, the moon was hidden behind the clouds, a kind of sickly-grey light flooded the waste land. Gusts of wind sometimes rustled the dry heather and then complete silence. Enormous stones stood here and there along the road. A gloomy road it was. The shadows cast by the stones covered the ground. Everything all around was dark and depressing. Sleep was stealing on me and the thought frightened me that a long road lay ahead: to go round the park, past the Giant's Gap. Perhaps better to take the short cut again across the waste land and look for the secret hole in the fence?

I turned off the road and almost immediately fell into deep mud; I was covered with dirt, got out onto a dry place, and then again got into dirt and finally came up against a long and narrow bog. Cursing myself for having taken this roundabout way, I turned to the left to the undergrowth on the river bank (I knew that dry land had to be there, because a river usually dries the earth along its banks), I soon came out again onto the same path along which I had walked on my way to Dubatoŭk's place, and finding myself half a mile away from his house, walked off along the undergrowth in the direction of Marsh Firs. Ahead, about a mile and a half away, the park was already visible, when some incomprehensible presentiment forced me to stop — maybe it was my nerves strung to such a high pitch this evening by the drinking and the danger, or perhaps it was some sixth sense that prompted me that I was not alone in the plain.

I didn't know what it was, but I was certain that it was yet far away. I hastened my steps and soon rounded the tongue of the bog into which I had just a while ago crept and which blocked the way. It turned out that directly in front of me, less than a mile away, was the Marsh Firs Park. The marsh hollow, about ten metres wide, separated me from the place where I had been about forty minutes ago and where I had fallen into the mud. Behind the hollow lay the waste land, equally lit by the same flickering light, and behind that — the road. Turning around, I saw far to the right a light twinkling in Dubatoŭk's house, peaceful and rosy; and to the left, also far away, behind the waste land the wall of the Janoŭski Forest Reserve was visible. It was at a great distance, bordering the waste land and the swamp.

I stood and listened, — although an uneasy feeling prompted me that IT was nearer. But I did not want to believe this presentiment: there had to be some real reason for such an emotional state. I saw nothing suspicious, heard nothing. What then could it have been, this signal, where had it come from? I lay down on the ground, pressed my ear to it, and felt an even vibration. I cannot say that I am a very bold person, it may be that my instinct of self-preservation is more highly developed than in others, but I have always been very inquisitive. I decided to wait and was soon rewarded. From the side of the forest some dark mass came moving very swiftly through the waste land. At first I could not guess what it was. Then I heard a gentle and smooth clatter of horses' hoofs. The heather rustled. Then everything disappeared, the mass had perhaps gone down into some hollow, and when it reappeared — the clattering was lost. It raced on noiselessly, as if it were floating in the air, coming nearer and nearer all the time. Yet another instant and my whole body moved ahead. Among the waves of the hardly transparent fog, horsemen's silhouettes could be seen galloping at a mad pace, the horses' manes whirling in the wind. I began to count them and counted up to twenty. At their head galloped the twenty-first. I still had my doubts, but here the wind brought from somewhere far away the sound of a hunting-horn. A cold, dry frost ran down my spine giving me the shivers.

The horsemen's faint shadows ran obliquely from the road to the swampy hollow. Their capes were swirling in the wind, the horsemen were sitting straight as dolls in their saddles, but not a sound reached me. It was in this very silence that the horror lay. In the fog bright spots were dancing. And racing on ahead was sitting the twenty-first, motionless in his saddle. His hat had a feather in it and the hat was lowered to cover his eyes. His face was pale and gloomy, his lips were compressed.

The wild heather sang beneath the horses' hoofs.

I looked attentively at the sharp noses that stuck out from under their hats, at the thin and shaggy legs of the horses that were of an unknown species.

Bending forward, grey, transparent horsemen raced on, silently they raced, King Stach's Wild Hunt.

I didn't immediately grasp the fact that roaming in the marsh they had fallen on my track and were now following after me. They stopped, just as noiselessly, near the place where I had fallen into the swamp. They were no more than twenty metres away from me across the swamp, I could even see that their horses, misty horses, were of a black and varicoloured coat, but I did not hear a single sound, only at times somewhere near the dense forest the horn sang in a muffled tone. I saw that one of them had bent down in his saddle, looked at the tracks and straightened up again. The leader waved his hand in the direction I had gone, rounding the hollow, and the Hunt raced on. A cold anger boiled within my heart: well, no, be you apparitions or whatever else, but I shall meet you in a fitting manner!.. A revolver and 6 bullets — and we shall see. I thrust my hand in my pocket, and…a cold sweat covered my forehead: no revolver there. Only now did I recollect that I had left it at home in a drawer of the table.

“This is the end,” I thought.

But to await the end with folded arms was not among my rules. They will be here within fifteen minutes. The country here is rugged. Here and there are hillocks that I can run across, while horsemen are afraid to get stuck in the mud on their horses. In this way I can confuse the tracks. Although if they are apparitions, they can fly across the dangerous places through the air.

I removed my boots so that the noise of my steps should not attract the attention of the Hunt. At first I went stealthily, and then, when the hollow was hidden by the bushes, I jumped about more quickly in loops, running across the heather, wetting my feet in the dew.

At first I went along the hollow, then made a sharp turn in the bushes towards Marsh Firs. I rushed through water and dirt — how could I now pay attention to such trifles? I was soon again on a path and on turning about, I saw the Wild Hunt already on the other side of the swamp. It was moving in my tracks with a dull stubborness. The Hunt raced on, the manes and capes swirling in the air.

Since the bushes hid me and the path was downhill, my running was of a class that I had never shown before and most likely never did afterward. I tore down at such a speed that the wind whistled in my ears, burnt my lungs, and perspiration ate my eyes. And the chase behind my back was slowly but surely coming closer. Soon it seemed to me I was about to fall and would be unable to get up (I had in fact stumbled twice), but I ran and ran, on and on. Slowly, very slowly, the dark park was coming nearer, but the clatter of the horses' hoofs sounded ever closer.

Luckily, as people would say today, I got my second wind. I ran straight through holes and ravines, skirting hills on which I might be noticed. The horses' hoofs sounded now nearer, now farther, now to the left, now to the right. No time to look round, but nevertheless I looked through the bushes. The riders of the Wild Hunt were flying after me in a milky, low fog.

Their horses stretched out in the air, the horsemen sat motionless, the heather rang beneath their hoofs. And above them, in a strip of clear sky, burnt a lonely sharp star.

I rolled down a hill, crossed a wide path, jumped into a ditch and ran along its bottom. The ditch was not far.from the fence. I crept out from it and with one leap reached the fence. They were about 40 metres away from me, but they lingered a little, having lost my scent and it enabled me to creep through a hardly noticeable hole and hide in the lilac. The park was in complete darkness and therefore when they raced past me along the path I couldn't get a good look at them. But I distinctly heard the leader groan:

“To the Gap!”

On raced the Wild Hunt, and I sat down on the ground. My heart was beating like a lamb's tail, but I jumped up quickly, knowing that I must not sit after this race. I understood very well that I had only a minute's respite. They could reach the house in a roundabout way more quickly than I in a straight line. And again I ran on. My feet were bleeding, several times I caught my feet on roots, and fell down, pine-needles lashed against my face. The large castle grew up in front of me entirely unexpectedly, and simultaneously I heard the clattering of the horses' hoofs somewhere ahead of me. They sounded again, they thundered so often that my skin sensed: they were racing at an incredibly fast gallop.

I decided to put everything at stake. I could hide in the park, but in the castle was a girl who was now most likely dying of fright. I had to be there, and it was there that my weapon lay.

A few jumps and I landed on the porch. I began beating on the door.

“Nadzieja! Miss Nadzieja! Open the door!”

She might fall unconscious on hearing my screaming. But the hoofs were already beating near the castle. Again I began to thunder.

The doors opened unexpectedly. I jumped into the house, locked the doors and was about to rush off for my weapon, but through the eye in the door I saw the misty horses racing past and disappearing behind the turn in the lane.

I glanced at first at Janoŭskaja and then in the mirror. She was evidently shocked at my appearance: in rags, all in scratches, blood on my hands, my hair dishevelled. I looked at Janoŭskaja again: her face pale, grown stiff with fright, she shut her eyes and asked:

“Now you believe in King Stach's Wild Hunt?”

“Now I believe,” I answered darkly. “And weren't you afraid to open the door at such a moment?! Such a courageous little heart!”

In answer she burst into tears:

“Mr. Biełarecki… Mr. Andrej… Andrej. I was so afraid, I had such fear for you. My God… my God!.. Let me alone be taken!”

I clenched my fists.

“Miss Nadzieja, I don't know whether they are apparitions or not. Apparitions couldn't be so real, and people couldn't be so transparent or blaze with such malice and rage. But I swear to you: for this your fright, for these your tears, they shall pay me, shall pay a high price. This I swear to you.”

Somewhere in the distance the fast clattering of horses' hoofs was dying away.