“Enough's enough!” Ryhor said. “The only thing left for us to do is to die. But we don't want to die. And you, Biełarecki, if anything is not to your liking, keep quiet. This is our affair. And God allows the whole world to rise against the horse-thief. Today we'll teach them not only not to trample the people, but even not to eat bread. These people with Michał at their head will remain here under your command. Mine are waiting for me at the swamp that surrounds the Janoŭski Virgin Forest near the Witch's mortar. There are twenty more of them there. If the Hunt comes there — we'll meet them, if they take another road unknown to us ou'll meet them. We'll keep watch at the Virgin Forest, the Cold Hollow and the waste lands that are next to us. If you need help, send a man.”
And Ryhor disappeared into the darkness.
We arranged an ambush. I instructed six mužyks to take their places along both sides of the road at the broken-down fence, and three somewhat farther on, thus forming a sack. In case anything should happen, the three would have to block the way to retreat for the Wild Hunt. I took my place behind the large tree by the very path.
I forgot to say that for each one of us there were three torches. Quite enough, in case of need, to light up everything around us.
As my people in leather coats lay down, they merged with the earth — they couldn't be distinguished from the hummocks, their grey sheepskins became one with the beaten down autumn grass.
In this way we waited quite a long time. Above the marshland floated the moon, from time to time some blue sparks flashed there, the fog sometimes became a compact, low sheet up to the knees, sometimes it slowly moved away again.
They, as always, appeared unexpectedly. Twenty misty horsemen on twenty misty horses. Their approach noiseless and terrifying. A silent mass moved on us. The bits did not ring, no human voices were heard. Capes were waving with the wind. The Hunt was dashing on. And at its head raced King Stach, his hat, as previously, pulled down over his face. We had expected them to come flying with the wind, but at about a hundred steps away they dismounted, spent much time near the horses' hoofs. When they moved on again, an altogether unexpected thunder of hoofs reached us, breaking into the silence.
Slowly they came nearer and nearer to us, they were already passing the quagmire and were riding up to the fence, but here they passed round it. Stach came riding straight towards me, and I could see his face, a face white as chalk.
When he was almost at my tree, I stepped forward, took his horse by the bridle. Simultaneously — with my left hand in which I clutched the riding-crop, — I moved his hat onto the back of his head.
It was Varona's face I saw — a face pale as death, eyes without a living light in them, large dead eyes.
So unexpected it was that he certainly did not know what to do, but I, to make up for it, knew very well what I should do.
“So you are King Stach?” I asked quietly, and hit him in the face with the riding-crop.
Varona's horse reared and dashed away from me into the group of horsemen.
At that very instant the guns thundered from the ambush, the torches blazed, and everything was in a whirl in a mad sea of fire. The horses reared, the horsemen fell, someone yelled in a heart-rending voice: I still remember only Michał's face as he cold-bloodedly took aim. A cone of bullets flashed out from a long gun. Then a young man's face floated in front of me, the face of that man with high cheek-bones; his long tresses of hair were falling down his forehead. The fellow was working with a pitchfork as on a threshing floor, then lifted it and with terrific strength thrust it into the belly of the rearing horse. The horseman, the horse, and the man fell down together. But I remained standing, and in spite of the fact that shots were already coming also from the Hunt, and that bullets were whistling overhead, I deliberately chose whom to shoot at from among the horsemen energetically surrounding me. Shots came pouring on them also from behind.
“Brothers, treachery!”
“Our galloping is over!”
“Save us!”
“Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!”
I saw fear on the faces of these bandits, and the joy of revenge took possession of me. They should have thought beforehand that the day of reckoning would come. I saw the mužyk with the club breaking into the thick of the fight, beating violent strokes with it. All the old fury, all the long-suffering now exploded in an attack of unheard of passion and fighting bravery. Somebody jerked off one of the hunters from his saddle and the horse dragged his head by the roots.
Within ten minutes all, in fact, was over. The riderless horses neighed horribly, the killed and wounded lay like sheaves on the ground, Varona alone, like the devil, dodged about among the mužyks, beating them off with a sword. His revolver he clutched between his teeth. He fought splendidly. Then he saw me. His face became distorted with such terrible hatred, that even now I remember it, and sometimes see in my dreams.
Having trampled down one of the peasants with his horse, he grabbed his revolver.
“Beware, you villain! You've taken her away from me! But there'll be no caresses for you!”
The peasant with the long whiskers pulled him by a leg and due only to that I didn't crash to the ground with a hole in my skull. Varona understood he would be pulled off his horse now, and firing point-blank, he killed the long-whiskered man on the spot.
And then I, having succeeded in reloading my revolver, sent all the six bullets into him. Varona, grasping at the air with his hands, reeled in his saddle, but nevertheless turned his horse around, knocked the high-cheek-boned man to the ground and dashed off in the direction of the swamp. He was all the time grasping at the air with his hands, but stayed in the saddie and together with it (the saddle-girth must have broken) slid down the side until he was hanging over the ground. The horse turned aside. Varona's head struck heavily against a stone post in the fence.
Varona flew out of his saddle, struck against the ground and remained lying motionless, dead.
It was a crushing defeat. The terrible Wild Hunt was overcome by the hands of ordinary mužyks on the very first day that they exerted themselves a little and began to believe that with pitchforks they could rise even against phantoms.
I examined the battlefield. The peasants were leading the horses off to the side. They were real Paleśsie drygants. All striped and with spots, with white nostrils, with eyes in whose depths a red flame blazed. Not surprising then that their capering in the fog seemed so unnatural, for I knew that this breed was distinguished for its remarkably long strides.
And unexpectedly two more riddles were solved. Firstly, four sheepskin bags hung at the saddle of each of the hunters. In case of need they could be put on the horses' hoofs and tied at the pasterns. Their steps became entirely noiseless. Secondly, among the dead and the wounded I saw three scarecrows on the ground that were dressed like the hunters, but they were tied to their saddles with ropes. Evidently, Varona did not have enough people.
However, our losses were also heavy ones. We'd never have conquered this band of professional murderers if our attack had not been so unexpected. But even as it was, our results were bad: the mužyks just could not fight. The fellow with the prominent cheek-bones who was knocked down by Varona's horse, lay with his head smashed. The long-legged mužyk had a bullet hole darkening in the very middle of his forehead. The mužyk with the club lay on the ground, his feet jerking: he was dying. Of the wounded there were twice as many. I also received a wound. A bullet at the rebound had flicked me in the back of my head.
We were swearing: Michał was bandaging my head and I was screaming that it was a trifle, rubbish. Soon one man was found alive among the Hunters, and he was led to a blazing camp-fire. In front of me stood Mark Stachievič, his hand hanging down at his side like a whip. It was that very same young aristocrat whose conversation with Pacuk I had overheard sitting in the tree. He looked very colourful in his cherry-coloured chuga, in a little hat, with an empty sabre scabbard at his side. “It seems you threatened the mužyks, didn't you, Stachievič? You will die as these here,” I said calmly. “But we can let you go free, because, alone, you are not dangerous. You will depart from the Janoŭski region and will remain alive, if you tell us about all the foul deeds of your gang.”
He hesitated, looked at the severe faces of the mužyks, the crimson light of the camp-fire lighting up their faces, their leather-coats, their hands gripping their pitchforks, and he understood there was no mercy to be expected. Pitchforks from all sides were surrounding him, touching his body.
“Dubatoŭk is to blame — it's all his doings,” he said sullenly. “Janoŭskaja's castle was to have been inherited by Haraburda, but he was greatly in debt to Dubatoŭk. Nobody, except us, Dubatoŭk's people, knew about that. We drank at his place and he gave us money. While himself he dreamed of the castle. He did not want to sell anything from that place, although the castle cost a lot of money. Varona said that if all the things in the castle were sold to museums, thousands could be realized. A chance event brought them together. At first Varona did not want to kill Janoŭskaja even though she had refused to marry him. But after Śvieciłovič't appearance, he agreed. The tale about King Stach's Wild Hunt came into Dubatoŭk's head three years ago. Dubatoŭk has hidden money laid aside somewhere, although he seems to be living poorly. In general he is a liar, very sly and secretive. He can twist the cleverest man round his little finger, he can pretend to be such a bear you'd be at a loss what to think. And so he went to the best of stud farms, owned by a lord who had become impoverished in recent years, and bought all his drygants. Then he brought them to the Janoŭski Reserve where we built a hide-out for ourselves and a stable. Our ability to tear along through the quagmire, where nobody can even walk, surprised everybody. But nobody knows how long we crept along the Giant's Gap in search of secret paths. And we found them. And studied them. And taught the horses. And then we dashed through places where the paths were up to the elbow in the quagmire, but at the sides — impassable marsh land. And the horses are a miracle! They rush to Dubatoŭk's call as dogs do. They sense the quagmire, and when a path breaks off, they can make enormous leaps. And we always went on the hunt only at night, when fog creeps over the land. And that's why everyone considered us phantoms. And we always kept silent. It was risky. But what could we do: die of hunger on a tiny piece of land? And Dubatoŭk paid. And we were not only driving Janoŭskaja to madness or death, but we even put the fear of God into those impudent serfs and taught them not to have too high an opinion of themselves. It was Dubatoŭk who got Haraburda to force Kulša to invite the little girl, because he knew that her father would be anxious about her. And we intercepted Raman on the way and seized him. Oh! And what a chase it was! — Ran away like the devil... But his horse broke a leg.”
“We know that,” I observed caustically. “By the way, Raman did give you away precisely after his death, although you didn't believe his cries. And some days ago you still didn't believe it when you were speaking with Pacuk after Bierman's murder.”
Stachievič was so surprised his jaw fell. I ordered him to continue relating.
“We inspired fear everywhere in the region. The farm-hands agreed to the price the owners gave. We began to live better. And we led Janoŭskaja to despair. And then you appeared. Dubatoŭk's bringing the portrait of Raman the Elder was no accident. If not for you, she would have gone mad within a week. Dubatoŭk saw that he had made a mistake. She was merry and carefree. You were dancing with her all the time; Dubatoŭk especially invited you when the guardian's report on affairs was to be made, and his guardianship handed over, so that you should become convinced she was poor. He conducted the estate well — it was, you see, to be his future estate. But Janoŭskaja's poverty had no effect on you, and then they decided to get you out of the way.”
“By the way,” I said, “I never had any intention of marrying her.”
Stachievič was totally surprised.
“Well, never mind. All the same you interfered with us. She revived with you there. To be just, I must say that Dubatoŭk really loved Janoŭskaja. He did not want to kill her, and if he could have got along without doing that, he would have willingly agreed. He respected you. He always said to us that you were a real man, only it was a pity that you didn't agree to join us. In short, things became too complicated: we had to get rid of you and of Śvieciłovič who had the right to the inheritance and loved Janoŭskaja. Dubatoŭk invited you to his place, where Varona was to challenge you to a duel. He played his part so well that no one even suspected that it was Dubatoŭk, not Varona, who was the instigator, and we in the meantime studied you closely, because we had to remember your face.”
“Go on,” I said.
Stachievič hesitated, but Michał poked him with the pitchfork at the place from which our legs grow. Mark looked around sullenly.
“The affair with the duel turned out stupidly. Dubatoŭk made you drink a lot, but you didn't get drunk. And you even turned out to be so smart that you put Varona to bed for five whole days.”
“But how could you then be in the house and chase after me at one and the same time?”
Stachievič continued reluctantly:
“Behind Dubatoŭk's farmstead others were waiting, novices they were. At first we thought of sending them after Śvieciłovič, in case you were killed, but Śvieciłovič sat with us till the morning, while Varona was wounded. We set them off after you. Dubatoŭk still cannot forgive himself for setting these snivellers on your track. You'd never have escaped from us, the real Hunt. Then we thought you'd take the roadway, but you went over the waste land, and you even forced the Hunt to waste a whole hour in front of the swamp. Until the dogs fell on the scent — and it was already too late. We cannot, even now, understand how you had managed to escape from us then, you dodged us so well. But take my word for this: had we caught you, you'd have been out of luck.”
“But why did the horn blow from the side? And where are the novices now?”
Stachievič forced himself to speak:
“One of us played the hunting-horn, he rode nearby. And the novices — here they are, lying on the ground. Previously we were fewer in number and took scarecrows with us on spare horses. We supposed that only you and Ryhor were lying in wait. But we did not think there'd be an army of you. And hard did we pay for that. Here they all are: Pacuk, Jan Styrovič, Paŭluk Babajed. And even Varona. You aren't worth even a finger-nail of his. A clever man was Varona, but he, too, has not escaped God's judgement.”
“Why did you throw me that note saying that King Stach's Wild Hunt comes at night?”
“What are you saying? Phantoms don't throw notes. We wouldn't have done such a stupid thing.”