"VENGEANCE IS MINE."
It was a sad, humble funeral. The blasts of October moaned in the
valley, and the rain hissed and wept. For which reason the villagers
preferred to remain indoors when the little bell called them early in
the morning to attend the body to its resting-place, the charitable
among them murmuring a prayer for the dead. "She needs it," they said,
"having laid hands on herself!" For which reason, also, the judge and
the elders had insisted that she must be buried by the outer wall of
the cemetery, although the honest pope had tried his utmost to show
them that the girl deserved their pity, even their admiration, rather
than their contempt. But the villagers clung to their opinion, and all
the priest could do was to take care that she should be buried with
full church honours. If no one else were willing he, at least, would
consign her to her grave reverently. He appeared at the mortuary chapel
soon after eight o'clock, followed by some half-dozen mourners, and
started back dismayed on beholding a band of armed and wild-looking
men, evidently waiting for the funeral. But he proceeded with his
sacred duly bravely, and felt touched not a little on perceiving how
fervently these ill-famed outlaws joined in the prayer he offered up by
the grave.
Having ended, Taras came forward, begging him to read three masses for
the maiden they had buried. He promised, but refused the money the
captain was offering him.
"You may take it without fear," said Taras, smiling sadly, "it is
honestly acquired--we rob no man."
The priest gave a searching glance in the face before him, which looked
old and anguished with the burden of sorrow this man had borne. "I
believe you," he said, "but permit me to do a good work for this poor
girl without taking reward."
Taras made no answer, but bowing low, he kissed the priest's hand
reverently. The good man, seeing him so deeply moved, took courage to
whisper a word urged by his deepest heart. "You poor, misguided man,"
he said, gently, "how long will you go on like this?"
"As long as there is need for it," said Taras, in a tone equally low,
but none the less firm and decided. "I have been kept from wrong so
far, but I see much of it about me."
The pope could but shake his head mournfully, and went his way. Taras
and his men remaining yet a while in the cemetery to say their prayers
by the newly-made grave. Nashko only stood aside, gazing at them
fixedly, and his eyes glowed with a terrible fire.
But a pitiful scene awaited these men on leaving the graveyard--the old
innkeeper and his wife standing without, weeping and sobbing; forbidden
by the strictness of their faith to pass within an enclosure at the
entrance of which there was a crucifix, they had abstained from coming
nearer, but from a distance had endeavoured to do honour to the dead
after their own fashion.
Taras went up to the old Jew. "You have done what you could," he said,
"and we thank you."
"What is the use of making words," cried Froim, passionately. "I know I
have done what I could, but I could not save her! I'm a poor old Jew,
but you are a strong, hale Christian, and if I were you I'd make the
rascal rue it dearly."
"This is the very thing I am going to do," returned Taras, quietly. "I
shall go straight to the Black Water to accuse him to his father. And
if Hilarion will not bring him to due punishment, I shall do so."
And the band mounted, turning their horses' heads westwards, towards
the towering peaks of the Czernahora. They stopped for the night at the
hamlet of Magura, reaching the settlement early the following day.
The patriarch appeared to have expected them, for his eldest son made
haste to invite Taras into his sire's presence, Hilarion receiving him
with the same dignified complacency with which he had parted from him
the week before. "You have come to call for justice against that young
son of mine; but I have anticipated it, and punished him as he
deserves."
"And what is his punishment?" inquired Taras.
"I have sent him to a distant pasture, where he will have to stay till
I give him leave to return, and I shall take good care not to do so
before the spring. This will furnish him with leisure to consider his
folly."
"Folly!" exclaimed Taras, bitterly.
"Yes, folly!" repeated the patriarch, pointedly. "Was she the only
pretty girl to be had? He ought to have seen that Tatiana had no taste
for him, but his vanity blinded him; it was sheer folly."
"But I call it a crime," cried Taras, hotly; "a mean, dastardly crime!"
The old man nodded. "I expected to hear you say this," he said calmly;
"but you are wronging the youth. You must bear in mind that he is a
Huzul. And, besides, how should he have foreseen that the girl would
drown herself? I suppose that even in the lowlands suicide for such a
reason is rarely heard of; but up here, I swear to you, such
desperation in a girl is utterly unknown. If you will bear this in
mind, you cannot accuse him of anything worse than folly."
"It was a dastardly crime," repeated Taras. "A man acting thus by a
poor defenceless girl dishonours himself, and ought to be dealt with
accordingly."
"Do you expect me to understand that I should order my son to have his
hair cut off as a sign that he is no longer fit for the society of the
brave and honourable of his kind?"
"I do," replied Taras, fiercely; "I even demand it. And if you refuse,
I must carry out the punishment myself."
There was a long pause of silence. Taras stood erect, fully expecting
to meet with the old man's indignant denial. But Hilarion preserved an
unperturbed calm, closing his eyes as one in deep thought. Now and then
he would nod his head like one arriving at a conclusion, and presently
he touched a small gong by his side. His eldest son entered. "Call
hither the clansmen, young and old, as many of them as are about the
settlement, and request the followers of this man also to enter my
house. Let all hear my decision."
The spacious room presently began to fill, the Huzuls thronging in
first, Taras's men following. And when silence had settled the aged
patriarch again nodded to himself, and thereupon he rose from his seat,
holding in his hand an intertwining twig of willow--for Taras had
interrupted some quiet occupation of his--and with solemn voice he
began:
"Listen to me, ye men of my people, for I, Hilarion, called the Just,
to whom you look for guidance, have cause to speak to you. Mark it
well, and tell others if need be ... You all were present when this man
of the lowlands, Taras, whom they call the avenger, first came to me;
and you know how I received him. You witnessed our solemn covenant; how
we swore friendship to one another, not only for to-day or to-morrow,
but partaking of each other's blood as a sign that it shall never be
broken while the red life-stream pulses through our veins. I have kept
this sacred vow; but he just now has wronged it grievously, casting
insult, nay, shame, on me by insisting that a member of my own house
shall be punished, not because I say so, but because he wills it, and
threatening that he himself will carry out such punishment if I fail to
do so. It is my own flesh and blood, even my youngest son Julko, whom
he will have dishonoured."
A cry of indignation burst from the Huzuls, and they turned upon Taras.
"Silence!" commanded the old man. "I have called you to hear what I
have to say, and for nothing else.... But what I say is this: a man who
can thus insult me no longer can be my friend and brother." He held up
the twig in his hand. "He and I have been as this branch of willow,
closely intertwined; but henceforth we are severed, and there is nought
to heal the disruption!" He broke the twig, casting the parts from him,
one to his right and one to his left.
"Urrahah!" shouted the Huzuls; but again the patriarch enforced
silence, and, turning to Taras, he said:
"You are no longer my friend, but a man who has offered me deadly
insult; yet the sacred law of our fathers lays it upon me never to
forget that we partook of one another's blood! I therefore may not, and
will not, have recourse to active enmity beyond what you yourself will
force me to by further affront. It were sufficient affront, however, if
a man who has acted as you have done should continue to insult me by
his presence! For which reason I banish you from this settlement, and
from these mountains, to the extent of my authority. You will leave the
settlement at once, withdrawing from my reach within these mountains in
three days. And let me warn you that none of you shall ever see the
lowlands again if, after this, you dare brave the presence of my
people. It is not on my son's account that I thus threaten you, for I
shall take care to inform him of your intentions, putting him on his
guard, and the Huzul lives not who fears his enemy when once he knows
him! It is not in order to protect him, therefore, that I have said
this, but simply because you have so deserved it. And now be gone!"
"I go," replied Taras; "but I call God and all here present to witness
that you are disgracing yourself and me. I will not avenge it, for I
also will remember the friendship we had sworn. But as for your son
Julko, I shall know how to find him and visit his wrong on him, like
any other evildoer."
The fury of the Huzuls knew no bounds, and Taras would have been lost
had the aged Hilarion himself not stepped between him and the indignant
clansmen, enabling him and his followers to leave the house and mount
their horses, the wild cries of their hitherto confederates pursuing
them as they rode away.
It was a sad departure, and with heavy hearts the little band returned
through the dreary landscape to the hamlet of Magura. What should they
do now, and whither turn their steps? Dark and gloomy lay the future
before them, but none of the men uttered a word of complaint.
Having reached the hamlet and seen to their horses' needs, Taras
gathered his men about him.
"I would not for a moment delude you with fair speeches," he said; "you
know for yourselves how matters stand. Just answer me one question:
Will you stay with me, or go your way? I could not upbraid any one
whose courage failed him to continue this life of ours. It has been
full of hardships hitherto; it will be almost unendurable now that the
Huzuls also are against us."
"Tell us about yourself, hetman," said Wassilj Soklewicz; "what are you
going to do?"
"I must continue to the end," replied Taras; "it is not for me to fail
in my duty, even if you all forsake me. I shall endeavour to win other
followers."
"Is it thus?" cried the faithful youth; "then we will share your fate!"
All the rest of them crying in chorus, "We will not forsake you!"
"I dare not dissuade you," said Taras, "it is not I, but the cause
which claims your fealty!... Now the next question is, where shall we
encamp ourselves? In the lowlands the military are on the look-out for
us, and here we are in danger of the Huzuls. I propose we retire to our
island fortress in the Wallachian bog. By the Crystal Springs, or
indeed anywhere within the mountains the Huzuls would rout us out; I
know them better even than you can know them. They were true to us
while they were friends, they will be intense in their hatred now they
are our enemies. But we are safe from them on that island, where we
have the advantage, moreover, of being in the very midst of the country
we would rid from oppression, and in a hiding-place we could hold
against almost any odds. I do not deceive myself concerning the danger
even there, but I know no better place."
They resolved, then, to venture into the lowlands the following
morning, after which these homeless outcasts lay down by their horses,
sleeping as calmly as though they had found rest by their own firesides
knowing nothing of the dread burdens of life.
Two only were awake--Nashko, keeping watch outside the hamlet, and
Taras, tossing on the bundle of straw that formed his couch. Sleep was
far from the unhappy man, much as he longed for it; indeed it had but
rarely come to him since that terrible hour, that last meeting in this
very place, separating him for ever from wife and child. Alas! and what
nameless agony tortured him in those hours that seemed an eternity to
the sore heart within! It was then he heard those voices that would not
be silenced, of regret not only concerning the lost happiness of his
life, but of a far more terrible regret--of awful accusation, much as
he fought against it when daylight and activity returned. The night
winds moaned, sounding to him like the blending curses of a hundred
voices, the never-silent reproaches of all those whom he had brought to
their doom. And when he succeeded for a moment in turning his back upon
the irredeemable past, fixing his relentless gaze on the life before
him, the life he would have to tread, what was it but a glaring
reality, a fearful outcome of the shadows behind?
He was glad of the first streak of daylight stealing into the barn,
and, rising from his troubled rest, he went out into the cold grey
morning, seeking the Jew, who walked to and fro at his post looking
pale and wan like a belated ghost. He nodded sadly on beholding his
friend.
"We shall not be able to mount for a couple of hours yet," said Taras.
"Turn in now, and have a rest."
"I could not sleep," replied Nashko, "but I am stiff with the cold, and
could scarcely ride without first stretching my limbs on the straw."
And, handing him his gun, he went away.
Taras walked up and down, slowly at first, till the nipping cold forced
him to a quicker pace. It was as dismal a morning of late autumn as
could well be imagined. Cutting gusts of east wind kept hissing through
the narrow valley, rattling in the gloomy fir-wood, and having their
own cold play with the whirling snow-flakes. The sun must have risen by
that time, but it was nowhere to be seen; a pale, cheerless light only,
descending from the snow-capped mountains, showed the muddy road and
its windings, with a look of hopelessness about it. Not a living
creature anywhere, not a sound of animated being beyond the croaking of
a solitary raven on a fir-tree near.
The unhappy man cast a listless glance at the dismal prophet. The raven
is looked upon as a bird of ill-omen, but what of trouble yet untasted
could its call forebode? Death? Nay, for would he not have welcomed it
gladly! And yet, though he seemed to know the very sum of human
suffering laid upon him by a terrible fate, even by his own awful will,
there was an agony approaching him that very morning, the direst
possibility of grief for his heart and soul, and that cheerless day was
to be the saddest of all his sad life....
An hour might have passed, but daylight seemed as far off as ever, and
the wind continued its play with the whirling snow-flakes, so that
Taras did not perceive the approach of a horseman, who was fighting his
way hither from Zabie, till he pulled up close by the hamlet. It was a
puny, elderly figure, ill-at-ease evidently on his miserable horse, and
shivering with the cold; for though his garment was bedizened
abundantly with gaudy ribands and glittering tinsel, there was not a
scrap of fur to yield comfort, his queer head-gear, a tricoloured
fool's cap, being fully in keeping with his tawdry appearance. On his
back, by a leathern strap, he carried--not a gun to betoken the
mountaineer--but a wooden case, from which protruded the neck of a
violin. Taras examined this strange horseman with not a little wonder,
concluding presently that it was some sort of a mountebank seen about
the village fairs in the lowlands, where they pick up a scanty living,
now playing the fiddle, now performing some jugglery. But what gain
might this artist be seeking in the wintry mountains?
"What a mercy," cried the horseman, "to fall in with a living creature
at last! How long shall I have to struggle on, tell me, before reaching
the Dembronia Forest?"
"What on earth do you want there?" asked Taras, surprised. "You would
find only wolves to make merry at your bidding, if that is it--why, the
forest is utterly uninhabited!"
"Then I am better informed than you," retorted the fiddler; "the
avenger and his band are in the forest, if no one else is."
"Do you want him?"
"To be sure, and badly! The poor wretch of a girl, I believe, would
claw my eyes out if I did not fetch him as I promised."
"What girl? But you may save yourself farther trouble--I am the
avenger."
"You!" cried the man, crossing himself quickly. But coming a little
closer, he peered with a half-fearful curiosity into the hetman's
sorrowful face. "You might be he, certainly," he muttered; "you look
exactly as they told me, and poor Kasia said I could not possibly
mistake the terrible gloom on your face. I suppose I had better believe
you, and you must come with me, else that wretched girl will die of her
remorse."
"What girl? what is it? Where am I wanted? Do speak plainly!"
"At the inn at Zabie. She'd have come to you instead of asking you to
come to her--I mean Kasia, my sister's daughter--she says it is killing
her, and she must not die without telling you."
"Telling me what? Has she any complaints to make against any
wrong-doer?"
"No; she has done that once too often already, and is grievously sorry
for it now. It is not you, though, who are to blame--nor in fact, is
she, poor thing--but her sweetheart, Jacek, that good-for-nothing
rascal; if you can pay him out for it, 'twere well if you did. For it
was a damned lie, all that story at Borsowka----"
"At Borsowka?'" exclaimed Taras, staggering. "At Borsowka!" he repeated
hoarsely. And clutching the fiddler with his strong hand, he dragged
him from the saddle and shook him till the poor creature gasped for
breath. "Speak the truth!... Is it that Marinia who sent you?"
"You are strangling me! Help!" groaned the fiddler. "It is not my fault
... help!... murder!"
At this moment Nashko, who had heard the cry, came out, followed by the
others.
"What is it?" they inquired, and the Jew, taking in the situation,
endeavoured to free the agonised messenger from the captain's powerful
grasp.
"Aren't you rather hard on him?" he whispered to his friend. "What has
he come for?"
But Taras, letting go his hold, stared about him like one demented, and
a shriek burst from him--"A horse! for God's sake, a horse!" His men
moved not, utterly confounded. But he broke away, dragging a horse from
the barn, the first he could lay hold on, and mounting it without
saddle or bridle dashed away in the direction of Zabie as fast as the
frightened animal could carry him.
Two hours later he stopped by the inn. The horse was done for. He cared
not, but rushed up to old Froim, who came to meet him. "Where is she?"
he cried, wildly.
"Who? the sick woman?" inquired the innkeeper. "We made up a bed for
her in the little lean-to."
Another minute and Taras stood by the couch. The girl had greatly
changed since that terrible night. She looked as though she had passed
through an illness, and her eyes were deep in their sockets. "Ah," she
moaned, "you have come, and I may tell you. It has left me no peace day
or night. I ran away from Jacek to look for my uncle Gregori, that he
might try and find you, for he was always...."
"Be quick about it," interrupted Taras. "I want to know the truth!"
"Ah! do not look at me with those eyes," cried the unhappy girl, hiding
her face in her hands, and indeed the man bending over her was fearful
to behold. "I want to tell you ... I wish I had never done it, but they
made me!"
"Be quick about it!" repeated Taras, hoarsely. "You are not Marinia
Bertulak, and no peasant girl from Borsowka. Your name is Kasia, and
you keep company with jugglers?"
"Yes, yes! I am Kasia Wywolow."
"And you lied to me in that night, all of you?"
"Yes, we did; the old baron only spoke the truth. The man who pretended
to be my father was Jacek, with whom I have been going about to fairs;
and the other one was a farm labourer, Dimitri Buliga, and not the
village judge...."
"And why did you deceive me?"
"It was all Karol's doing. We, Jacek and I, fell in with him at the
merry-making here at Zabie, and he talked us over; after which he went
to Borsowka, where he bribed the coachman and prevailed on Dimitri to
play the judge. He said he knew exactly how to set about it to make you
believe the story ... he had an old grudge against the poor baron, who
years ago brought him to punishment for theft. He stole away from you
as soon as the deed was done, dividing the spoils with Jacek and
Dimitri, who waited for him at Kotzman. But I suffered agony with
remorse, and it brought me here."
"That will do," said Taras, faintly; "thank you." And he staggered from
the room. The old innkeeper came upon him presently where he lay in a
merciful swoon.
It was late in the afternoon when his men came after him, and with them
the fiddler Gregori. They had not been able to gather the full truth
from the bewildered messenger, but they had understood sufficiently to
know that Karol Wygoda had deceived them shamefully, and it had filled
their honest hearts with indignant grief. But pity for their unhappy
leader was uppermost, for they felt rather than knew how fearfully the
discovery must affect him; and since he had left no orders, they waited
hour after hour, with growing anxiety, thinking he might return; and as
he did not, they now came to seek him.
"Yes, he is here," said old Froim, sorrowfully, in answer to Nashko's
inquiry, "and I think he is seriously ill. I do not know what that
young woman may have told him," he added under his breath, "but it must
have been something very awful; for he fainted right out, and when I
had managed to bring him to again, he just said: 'I must go my way to
the gallows now,' and never another word has crossed his lips. I have
tried to rouse him, but he is like a stone, staring blankly; it could
not be worse if he had buried wife and child. I have spoken to him, I
have implored him, but not a sign is to be got from him. Will you try
it?--he may yield to your words."
Nashko told his companions what the old Jew had said, and they all
agreed. "Try and rouse him," they said, "tell him that to us he is as
noble and just as before. How should he, how should we, in God's eyes,
be guilty of this blackguard Karol's wickedness!"
Nashko took heart and entered the little room, where Froim had prepared
a couch for the stricken hetman, but he was unable to deliver the men's
message. For no sooner had he closed the door than Taras turned to him,
saying huskily, but firmly: "Please leave me to myself till to-morrow
morning; I must think it over; not for my own sake, for I know what I
have to do, but for yours--I would like to counsel each of you for the
best I can hardly collect my thoughts as yet, it is as though I had
been struck with lightning. Let me come to myself first. I daresay
Froim will find a night's lodging for you; and to-morrow--yes,
to-morrow morning when the day has risen, I will see you." Taras seemed
fully determined, and Nashko could but yield.
The following day early, when the men had gathered in the great empty
bar-room, Taras came among them. They had not seen him for a space of
four-and-twenty hours, but the havoc wrought in his appearance seemed
the work of years. He was fearfully altered, looking like an old man
now, overcome with life's distress.
"Dear friends," he said, speaking very calmly and kindly, "I pray you
listen to me, but do not try to turn me from my firm resolve. I release
you one and all from the fealty you have sworn to me. I am your leader
no longer. Please God, this will be the last time that you will see me;
I have prayed to Him earnestly to let my life and the yielding up of
its every hope be sufficient atonement. Yes, I have pleaded with Him in
mercy to let your ways be far from mine; for the path I have to tread
will now take me to Colomea, to prison, and thence to the final doom."
A cry of horror interrupted him. "For God's sake," they cried, "what is
it that has come to you?"
"Not thus, if you love me," he said, gently, warding them off. "I have
followed the voice of my own heart so far, let me follow it still. That
voice has deceived me hitherto, leading me to misery and crime; it is
speaking well this day for the first time! Yet, be very sure, I was not
wrong in saying that the plain will of God required Right and Justice
to be upheld in this world; not wrong in accusing those of their
shortcomings whose sacred duty it is to see that justice rules here
below, but who do not carry out this duty to its fullest, holiest
meaning. My mistake was this, that I fancied this unfulfilled duty
could by the will of God devolve upon me or any other individual man.
To be sure I who sacrificed all earthly happiness at the shrine of
justice, who became a murderer in blind love of the right, and now go
to the gallows--I most not be unjust, not even against myself, and
therefore I say it was a natural mistake. For what more natural than to
argue: Since they will not guard the right whose bounden duty it is, I
will do so, who am strong at heart and pure of purpose! But,
nevertheless, it was a grievous mistake. I see it now. I still believe
in that grand, holy ladder of His making which is intended to join
earth to heaven; but plainly it is not His will, even if some of its
steps at times be rotten, that any single man should take upon himself
to make up in his own poor strength for any failings in that glorious
institution for working out the divine will. It were proud, sinful
presumption in any man, and I have done evil in His sight, not merely
in disregarding what mischief must accrue if others followed my
example, but chiefly on account of the awful delusion that _I_ was
above erring, and that _my_ judgments must needs be just! And how
did I come to imagine this? Because I chose to believe that the
Almighty _must_ keep me from foiling--me, His servant, the righteous,
justice-loving Taras. It was just my pride! The magistrates, the
courts, might err, but I never! And yet how great is the danger if the
carrying out of justice be vested in any individual man!--the work I
have undertaken could not but end like this! I believed I was doing
right, and I have been utterly confounded. The Baron of Borsowka was a
righteous man, and I, who presumed to judge him, have been his
murderer."
"But that was not your fault; you were deceived by Karol!" they cried.
"I was," replied Taras; "yet the guilt rests with me for not examining
into the charge more carefully. Why did I refuse his urgent request to
send for witnesses to the village? I am his murderer. I, and no one
else; and since I have judged falsely in his case, how can I be sure
that I have not done so in others? But, be that as it may, I am an
assassin, and it behoves me to expiate my crime, submitting to those
whom God has called to judge any evildoer in the land. I am going to
Colomea to give myself up."
Vainly they strove to turn him from his resolve. He kept repeating: "I
follow the voice within, and it has begun to speak truth." With heavy
hearts they perceived it was utterly useless to plead with him, and
listened to his last farewell. He enjoined them to separate at once and
to begin a new life each for himself in different parts of the country.
He had a word of sympathy, of advice for each. "Forty florins are still
in my possession," he added, producing the sum; "it is all I have left
of the money contributed by honest peasants towards my work. Take it
and divide it fairly. Let it be the same with the proceeds of your arms
and horses."
And he took leave of them, of each man separately, the Jew being last.
"Nashko," he said, "I have yet a request to make of you. You love me, I
know, and I am about to die. Will you grant it?"
"Surely," said the Jew, with tear-stifled voice.
"I know your intentions with regard to Julko," said Taras, "and I know
the reason.... But I ask you to forbear, and to leave these mountains
without bringing him to his due."
"The thought of revenge was sweet," said the Jew, "but I will do your
desire."
"Whither will you betake yourself?" asked Taras. "I was able to advise
them all, but I know not what to say to you; besides, your judgment is
better than mine."
"I shall go away--far, far away," said Nashko. "I have heard that in
following the sun through many lands you reach the wide sea at last,
and crossing the sea you reach a country where a man is a man, and no
one inquires into his creed. I shall try for that country, and if so be
that I get there----"
"God speed you!" said Taras, deeply moved, "for your heart is honest
and you have been true to me. So have you all: the Almighty watch over
your lives!"
He left the room and, seeking his horse, he sped away from his friends
towards the lowlands, vanishing from their gaze.