BORIS FINDS A NEW FRIEND.
Boris was so exhausted with the long chase that he had hardly
sufficient strength to reach the weapon and turn it against his furious
pursuer. To do this he must gain ground upon the bear, which was at the
instant so close behind that he could have kicked it with his heel.
Summoning therefore all the energy of which he was still master, the
hunted hunter filled his lungs to the full, and started to run the
fastest hundred yards that he had ever covered. So swiftly did he fly
over the ground that he was some twenty-five good paces in front of the
bear when his hands closed upon his faithful spear, and he knew that,
for the moment at least, he was saved, and that if only his strength
did not fail him he should now hold his own and perhaps a little more
when Bruin came to close quarters.
Twisting round with the rapidity of a spindle, Boris felt for a steady
foothold for both of his feet, found it, poised his long steel-tipped
wooden spear, took a long, deep breath, set his teeth, and in a moment
the struggle had commenced. The bear, slightly rising on his hind
legs to seize and hug his foe, threw himself with a loud roar of rage
upon Boris, impaling himself as he did so upon the cruel point of the
spear. This was a critical moment. Strong as he was, and firmly as
he had taken his stand, the shock of the huge brute's rush all but
knocked poor weary Boris off his legs and nearly tore his muscular arms
from their sockets. The bear, mad with pain and rage, pressed in its
fury upon the stout spear, and bit and tore at the good oak until the
splinters flew and the whole spear shook and trembled in the hunter's
grasp.
Breathless and weary as he was, Boris nevertheless held his own, and
for some time budged not an inch.
There is a limit, however, to the powers of the hardest muscles and of
the stoutest hearts, and the present tension was more than the bravest
and the strongest could support for any length of time. Boris was
evidently tiring. Had he been fresh when this great wrestling match
began, he would long since have made an irresistible rush, pushed
the monster over backwards, and despatched him with repeated digs of
the spear, as he had many a time treated bears before. But Boris was
weary with his long struggle. He could not hold on much longer, but in
desperation he still clung to his quivering spear, and pushed with all
his might and determination against his giant enemy.
And now his head began to swim, and his eyes grew hot and dimmed,
and there was a sound in his ears as of waters that rushed in and
overwhelmed him. Still his senses did not desert him, nor his nerve.
As he became conscious that his strength was failing him he became
the more determined to hold out, and with a hoarse shout of defiance
he pulled himself together for one supreme effort. His failing grasp
clutched tighter at the shaft; his stiff and aching feet planted
themselves yet more firmly in their grip of the foothold from which
they had not budged by a hair's-breadth; his tightened muscles
tightened themselves yet more as he bore upon the shaft, and forced it
by sheer strength of will a couple of inches further towards victory.
The bear tottered, his eyes rolled and his tongue showed between his
teeth, and for a moment it seemed that Boris had won the battle. Now
it is anybody's game! For an instant and another neither bear nor
man has the advantage. Then the bear rallies. Growling, sputtering,
roaring, the monster slowly recovers his lost ground, then gains
an inch, and another. Boris feels faint and dizzy; his strength is
failing, his grasp relaxing. Still he fights on; but it is useless now.
His brave feet, that have held their own so long, give way; his muscles
too, they have made a good fight, but they cannot hold out longer--they
are relaxing; his fingers are loosening their hold upon the shaft; his
eyes are so dim now that they cannot see the monster who is falling
upon him to slay him; he is vanquished, he is giving ground rapidly;
in another instant he will fall, and die. The bear will die too, of
course; that thought will be his dying consolation.
A shout of encouragement behind him, and the sound of rushing
feet! "Hold tight there just one minute more!" somebody cries; and
automatically the stiffened fingers tighten themselves, and the feet
grip the ground. Then a fresh hand grasps the shaft; two powerful feet
plant themselves in the place where the failing ones have stood; and as
the wearied and vanquished Boris falls fainting to the earth, the new
arrival bears upon that stout staff with a force which even the mighty
bear cannot withstand.
Back goes the bear by inches--now he is tottering--another shout and an
irresistible rush forwards, and he is down, fighting and tearing to the
last as a bold king of the forest should.
One more dig into the dying monster, a kick upon the prostrate carcass
with the long, heavy Russian boot, and then the stranger turns to
look after poor Boris. But first he wipes his hands upon a tuft of
purple-fruited bilberry leaves, and from an inner pocket of his
somewhat rich-looking _kaftan_, or tunic, he produces a silver-tipped
flagon of Russian spirits. This he puts to the lips of Boris, who soon
revives under the treatment, and sits up, dazed, to stare around with
his hand to his eyes. First he fixes a long look upon the prostrate
bear and the spear lying beside it; then he catches sight of the
stranger, and stares long and fixedly at him. At last he says, "Are you
St. Boris come to save me in answer to my call?"
The stranger burst into a loud, jovial guffaw.
"Bless your heart," he shouted, "I'm not a saint! Very far from it, I'm
afraid. I'm only a man, like yourself."
"A man indeed!" said Boris; "and such a man as I have not seen the
likeness of--well, since I last looked in the looking-glass!"
Boris made this remark in perfectly good faith, and without the
slightest intention of paying himself a compliment. He knew well enough
that he was by many degrees the strongest and finest-looking man in
the country side, and by comparing the stranger with himself he merely
offered honest testimony to the magnificent appearance of the latter.
Nor was his admiration misplaced, for a finer-looking young fellow
than he who now bent over Boris was rarely seen. Scarcely more than
a boy--he was about the same age as Boris himself--the stranger was
tall and robust, and straight as a young pine; taller than Boris, and
broader too, though not more athletic-looking. His face was handsome
and powerful, and his black hair curled in masses over a wide forehead
and bold, rather cruel eyes. Boris gazed in admiration at this
magnificent specimen of humanity--it was a new sensation to him to see
any one physically superior to himself.
"You made a good fight," said the stranger, guffawing once more over
the last speech of Boris; "but though you seem to have a fairly good
opinion of yourself, that bear would have been lying on the top of you
by this time if I had not come up in the nick of time. I watched the
fight for some minutes. You have pluck, I am pleased to observe. What
is your name?"
"Boris the Bear-Hunter," replied that worthy.
"Ha, ha! Boris the Bear-_Hunted_, you mean," laughed the stranger.
"Well, I should like to know more of you, if you will. Come and see me
to-morrow morning at Archangel, and we'll have a chat."
"Very well, _barin_" (gentleman), said Boris, feeling, in spite of his
own usually defiant independence of spirit, that here was one who must
of necessity command and be obeyed; "for I see you are a barin by your
kaftan. What are you called, and where shall I seek you?"
"Petka, and sometimes Petrushka, is my name," said the big youth; "and
you may ask for me at the burgomaster's house in the town. You will
hear of me there till eleven to-morrow; after that I take ship for a
sail abroad. And now I will leave you and _mishka_[1] yonder to take
care of one another. Beware, while you skin him, that he doesn't jump
up and skin _you_. He may be shamming while I am here, you see; but he
has no cause to be afraid of you."
With which gentle sarcasm and another jovial laugh the tall youth
departed, leaving Boris to reflect upon the extreme good fortune which
had sent him the right man at the right moment to extract him from the
tightest fix he had ever succeeded in getting himself into during the
whole course of his nineteen summers.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] _Mishka_ is the familiar Russian name for a bear.