All were silent, so great was the impression which the name of the
terrible warrior had made. Tugai Bey was the man who, in company
with the dreadful Hmelnitski, had shaken the entire Commonwealth;
he had shed a whole sea of Polish blood; he had trampled the
Ukraine, Volynia, Podolia, and the lands of Galicia with the hoofs
of horses; had destroyed castles and towns, had visited villages
with fire, had taken tens of thousands of people captive. The son
of such a man was now there before the assembly in the stanitsa of
Hreptyoff, and said to the eyes of people: “I have blue fish on my
breast; I am Azya, bone of the bone of Tugai Bey.” But such was
the honor among people of that time for famous blood that in spite
of the terror which the name of the celebrated murza must have
called forth in the soul of each soldier, Mellehovich increased in
their eyes as if he had taken on himself the whole greatness of his
father.
They looked on him with wonderment, especially the women, for whom
every mystery becomes the highest charm; he too, as if he had
increased in his own eyes through his confession, grew haughty: he
did not drop his head a whit, but said in conclusion,--
“That noble”--here he pointed at Novoveski--“says I am his man;
but this is my reply to him: ‘My father mounted his steed from
the backs of men better than you.’ He says truly also that I was
with him, for I was, and under his rods my back streamed with
blood, which I shall not forget, so help me God! I took the name
of Mellehovich to escape his pursuit. But now, though I might have
gone to the Crimea, I am serving this fatherland with my blood
and health, and I am under no one but the hetman. My father was
a relative of the Khan, and in the Crimea wealth and luxury were
waiting for me; but I remained here in contempt, for I love this
fatherland, I love the hetman, and I love those who have never
disdained me.”
When he had said this, he bowed to Volodyovski, bowed so low before
Basia that his head almost touched her knees; then, without looking
on any one again, he took his sabre under his arm, and walked out.
For a time yet silence continued. Zagloba spoke first. “Ha! Where
is Pan Snitko! But I said that a wolf was looking out of the eyes
of that Azya; and he is the son of a wolf!”
“The son of a lion!” said Volodyovski; “and who knows if he hasn’t
taken after his father?”
“As God lives, gentlemen, did you notice how his teeth glittered,
just like those of old Tugai when he was in anger?” said Pan
Mushalski. “By that alone I should have known him, for I saw old
Tugai often.”
“Not so often as I,” said Zagloba.
“Now I understand,” put in Bogush, “why he is so much esteemed
among the Tartars of Lithuania and the South. And they remember
Tugai’s name as sacred. By the living God, if that man had the
wish, he might take every Tartar to the Sultan’s service, and cause
us a world of trouble.”
“He will not do that,” answered Pan Michael, “for what he has
said--that he loves the country and the hetman--is true; otherwise
he would not be serving among us, being able to go to the Crimea
and swim there in everything. He has not known luxury with us.”
“He will not go to the Crimea,” said Pan Bogush, “for if he had had
the wish, he could have done so already; he met no hindrance.”
“On the contrary,” added Nyenashinyets, “I believe now that he
will entice back all those traitorous captains to the Commonwealth
again.”
“Pan Novoveski,” said Zagloba, suddenly, “if you had known that he
was the son of Tugai Bey, perhaps then--perhaps so--what?”
“I should have commanded to give him, instead of three hundred,
three thousand blows. May the thunderbolts shatter me if I would
not have done so! Gracious gentlemen, it is a wonder to me that he,
being Tugai Bey’s whelp, did not run off to the Crimea, It must be
that he discovered this only recently; for when with me he knew
nothing about it. This is a wonder to me, I tell you it is; but for
God’s sake, do not trust him. I know him, gentlemen, longer than
you do; and I will tell you only this much: the devil is not so
slippery, a mad dog is not so irritable, a wolf is less malignant
and cruel, than that man. He will pour tallow under the skins of
you all yet.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Mushalski. “We have seen him
in action at Kalnik, at Uman, at Bratslav, and in a hundred other
emergencies.”
“He will not forget his own; he will have vengeance,” said
Novoveski.
“But to-day he slew Azba’s ravagers. What are you telling us?”
Meanwhile Basia was all on fire, that history of Mellehovich
occupied her so much; but she was anxious that the end should be
worthy of the beginning; therefore, shaking Eva Novoveski, she
whispered in her ear, “But you loved him, Eva? Own up; don’t deny!
You loved him. You love him yet, do you not? I am sure you do.
Be outspoken with me. In whom can you confide, if not in me, a
woman? There is almost royal blood in him. The hetman will get him,
not one, but ten naturalizations. Pan Novoveski will not oppose.
Undoubtedly Azya himself loves you yet. I know already; I know, I
know. Never fear. He has confidence in me. I will put the question
to him at once. He will tell me without torture. You loved him
terribly; you love him yet, do you not?”
Eva was as if dazed. When Azya showed his inclination to her the
first time, she was almost a child; after that she did not see
him for a number of years, and had ceased to think of him. There
remained with her the remembrance of him as a passionate stripling,
who was half comrade to her brother, and half serving-lad. But now
she saw him again; he stood before her a handsome hero and fierce
as a falcon, a famous warrior, and, besides, the son of a foreign,
it is true, but princely, stock. Therefore young Azya seemed to
her altogether different; therefore the sight of him stunned her,
and at the time dazzled and charmed her. Memories of him appeared
before her as in a dream. Her heart could not love the young man in
one moment, but in one moment she felt in it an agreeable readiness
to love him.
Basia, unable to question her to the end, took her, with Zosia
Boski, to an alcove, and began again to insist, “Eva, tell me
quickly, awfully quickly, do you love him?”
A flame beat into the face of Eva. She was a dark-haired and
dark-eyed maiden, with hot blood; and that blood flew to her cheeks
at any mention of love.
“Eva,” repeated Basia, for the tenth time, “do you love him?”
“I do not know,” answered Eva, after a moment’s hesitation.
“But you don’t deny? Oho! I know. Do not hesitate. I told Michael
first that I loved him,--no harm! and it was well. You must have
loved each other terribly this long time. Ha! I understand now. It
is from yearning for you that he has always been so gloomy; he went
around like a wolf. The poor soldier withered away almost. What
passed between you? Tell me.”
“He told me in the storehouse that he loved me,” whispered Eva.
“In the storehouse! What then?”
“Then he caught me and began to kiss me,” continued she, in a still
lower voice.
“Maybe I don’t know him, that Mellehovich! And what did you do?”
“I was afraid to scream.”
“Afraid to scream! Zosia, do you hear that? When was your loving
found out?”
“Father came in, and struck him on the spot with a hatchet; then he
whipped me, and gave orders to flog him so severely that he was a
fortnight in bed.”
Here Eva began to cry, partly from sorrow, and partly from
confusion. At sight of this, the dark-blue eyes of the sensitive
Zosia filled with tears, then Basia began to comfort Eva, “All will
be well, my head on that! And I will harness Michael into the work,
and Pan Zagloba. I will persuade them, never fear. Against the wit
of Pan Zagloba nothing can stand; you do not know him. Don’t cry,
Eva dear, it is time for supper.”
Mellehovich was not at supper. He was sitting in his own room,
warming at the fire gorailka and mead, which he poured into a
smaller cup afterward and drank, eating at the same time dry
biscuits. Pan Bogush came to him late in the evening to talk over
news.
The Tartar seated him at once on a chair lined with sheepskin, and
placing before him a pitcher of hot drink, inquired, “But does Pan
Novoveski still wish to make me his slave?”
“There is no longer any talk of that,” answered the under-stolnik
of Novgrod, “Pan Nyenashinyets might claim you first; but he cares
nothing for you, since his sister is already either dead, or does
not wish any change in her fate. Pan Novoveski did not know who you
were when he punished you for intimacy with his daughter. Now he
is going around like one stunned, for though your father brought
a world of evil on this country, he was a renowned warrior, and
blood is always blood. As God lives, no one will raise a finger
here while you serve the country faithfully, especially as you have
friends on all sides.”
“Why should I not serve faithfully?” answered Azya. “My father
fought against you; but he was a Pagan, while I profess Christ.”
“That’s it,--that’s it! You cannot return to the Crimea,
unless with loss of faith, and that would be followed by loss
of salvation; therefore no earthly wealth, dignity, or office
could recompense you. In truth, you owe gratitude both to Pan
Nyenashinyets and Pan Novoveski, for the first brought you from
among Pagans, and the second reared you in the true faith.”
“I know,” said Azya, “that I owe them gratitude, and I will try to
repay them. Your grace has remarked truly that I have found here a
multitude of benefactors.”
“You speak as if it were bitter in your mouth when you say that;
but count yourself your well-wishers.”
“His grace the hetman and you in the first rank,--that I will
repeat until death. What others there are, I know not.”
“But the commandant here? Do you think that he would yield you into
any one’s hands, even though you were not Tugai Bey’s son? And
Pani Volodyovski, I heard what she said about you during supper.
Even before, when Novoveski recognized you, she took your part.
Pan Volodyovski would do everything for her, for he does not see
the world beyond her; a sister could not have more affection for a
brother than she has for you. During the whole time of supper your
name was on her lips.”
The young Tartar bent his head suddenly, and began to blow into the
cup of hot drink; when he put out his somewhat blue lips to blow,
his face became so Tartar-like that Pan Bogush said,--
“As God is true, how entirely like Tugai Bey you were this moment
passes imagination. I knew him perfectly. I saw him in the palace
of the Khan and on the field; I went to his encampment it is small
to say twenty times.”
“May God bless the just, and the plague choke evildoers!” said
Azya. “To the health of the hetman!”
Pan Bogush drank, and said, “Health and long years! It is true
those of us who stand with him are a handful, but true soldiers.
God grant that we shall not give up to those bread-skinners, who
know only how to intrigue at petty diets, and accuse the hetman of
treason to the king. The rascals! We stand night and day with our
faces to the enemy, and they draw around kneading-troughs full of
hashed meat and cabbage with millet, and are drumming on them with
spoons,--that is their labor. The hetman sends envoy after envoy,
implores reinforcements for Kamenyets. Cassandra-like, he predicts
the destruction of Ilion and the people of Priam; but they have
no thought in their heads, and are simply looking for an offender
against the king.”
“Of what is your grace speaking?”
“Nothing! I made a comparison of Kamenyets with Troy; but you, of
course, have not heard of Troy. Wait a little; the hetman will
obtain naturalization for you. The times are such that the occasion
will not be wanting, if you wish really to cover yourself with
glory.”
“Either I shall cover myself with glory, or earth will cover me.
You will hear of me, as God is in heaven!”
“But those men? What is Krychinski doing? Will they return, or not?
What are they doing now?”
“They are in encampment,--some in Urzyisk, others farther on. It is
hard to come to an agreement at present, for they are far from one
another. They have an order to move in spring to Adrianople, and to
take with them all the provisions they can carry.”
“In God’s name, that is important, for if there is to be a great
gathering of forces in Adrianople, war with us is certain. It is
necessary to inform the hetman of this at once. He thinks also that
war will come, but this would be an infallible sign.”
“Halim told me that it is said there among them that the Sultan
himself is to be at Adrianople.”
“Praised be the name of the Lord! And here with us hardly a handful
of troops. Our whole hope in the rock of Kamenyets! Does Krychinski
bring forward new conditions?”
“He presents complaints rather than conditions. A general amnesty,
a return to the rights and privileges of nobles which they had
formerly, commands for the captains,--is what they wish; but as the
Sultan has offered them more, they are hesitating.”
“What do you tell me? How could the Sultan give them more than
the Commonwealth? In Turkey there is absolute rule, and all
rights depend on the fancy of the Sultan alone. Even if he who is
living and reigning at present were to keep all his promises, his
successor might break them or trample on them at will; while with
us privileges are sacred, and whoso becomes a noble, from him even
the king can take nothing.”
“They say that they were nobles, and still they were treated on a
level with dragoons; that the starostas commanded them more than
once to perform various duties, from which not only a noble is
free, but even an attendant.”
“But if the hetman promises them.”
“No one doubts the high mind of the hetman, and all love him in
their hearts secretly; but they think thus to themselves: ‘The
crowd of nobles will shout down the hetman as a traitor; at the
king’s court they hate him; a confederacy threatens him with
impeachment. How can he do anything?’”
Pan Bogush began to stroke his forelock. “Well, what?”
“They know not themselves what to do.”
“And will they remain with the Sultan?”
“No.”
“But who will command them to return to the Commonwealth?”
“I.”
“How is that?”
“I am the son of Tugai Bey.”
“My Azya,” said Pan Bogush, after a while, “I do not deny that they
may be in love with your blood and the glory of Tugai Bey, though
they are our Tartars, and Tugai Bey was our enemy. I understand
such things, for even with us there are nobles who say with a
certain pride that Hmelnitski was a noble, and descended, not from
the Cossacks, but from our people,--from the Mazovians. Well,
though such a rascal that in hell a worse is not to be found, they
are glad to recognize him, because he was a renowned warrior. Such
is the nature of man! But that your blood of Tugai Bey should give
you the right to command all Tartars, for this I see no sufficient
reason.”
Azya was silent for a time; then he rested his palms on his thighs,
and said, “Then I will tell you; Krychinski and other Tartars obey
me. For besides this, that they are simple Tartars and I a prince,
there are resources and power in me. But neither you know them, nor
does the hetman himself know them.”
“What resources, what power?”
“I do not know how to tell you,” answered Azya, in Russian. “But
why am I ready to do things that another would not dare? Why have I
thought of that of which another would not have thought?”
“What do you say? Of what have you thought?”
“I have thought of this,--that if the hetman would give me the will
and the right, I would bring back, not merely the captains, but
would put half the horde in the service of the hetman. Is there
little vacant land in the Ukraine and the Wilderness? Let the
hetman only announce that if a Tartar comes to the Commonwealth
he will be a noble, will not be oppressed in his faith, and will
serve in a squadron of his own people, that all will have their
own hetman, as the Cossacks have, and my head for it, the whole
Ukraine will be swarming soon. The Lithuanian Tartars will come;
they will come from the South; they will come from Dobrudja and
Belgrod; they will come from the Crimea; they will drive their
flocks, and bring their wives and children in wagons. Do not shake
your head, your grace; they will come!--as those came long ago who
served the Commonwealth faithfully for generations. In the Crimea
and everywhere the Khan and the murzas oppress the people; but in
the Ukraine they will have their sabres, and take the field under
their own hetman. I swear to you that they will come, for they
suffer from hunger there from time to time. Now, if it is announced
among the villages that I, by the authority of the hetman, call
them,--that Tugai Bey’s son calls,--thousands will come here.”
Pan Bogush seized his own head: “By the wounds of God, Azya, whence
did such thoughts come to you? What would there be?”
“There would be in the Ukraine a Tartar nation, as there is a
Cossack. You have granted privileges to the Cossacks, and a hetman.
Why should you not grant them to us? You ask what there would be.
There would not be what there is now,--a second Hmelnitski,--for
we should have put foot at once on the throat of the Cossack;
there would not be an uprising of peasants, slaughter and ruin;
there would be no Doroshenko, for let him but rise, and I should
be the first to bring him on a halter to the feet of the hetman.
And should the Turkish power think to move against us, we would
beat the Sultan; were the Khan to threaten raids, we would beat
the Khan. Is it so long since the Lithuanian Tartars, and those
of Podolia, did the like, though remaining in the Mohammedan
faith? Why should we do otherwise? We are of the Commonwealth, we
are noble. Now, calculate. The Ukraine in peace, the Cossacks in
check, protection against Turkey, a number of tens of thousands
of additional troops,--this is what I have been thinking; this is
what came to my head; this is why Krychinski, Adurovich, Moravski,
Tarasovski, obey me; this is why one half the Crimea will roll to
those steppes when I raise the call.”
Pan Bogush was as much astonished and weighed down by the words of
Azya as if the walls of that room in which they were sitting had
opened on a sudden, and new, unknown regions had appeared to his
eyes. For a long time he could not utter a word, and merely gazed
on the young Tartar; but Azya began to walk with great strides up
and down in the room. At last he said,--
“Without me this cannot be done, for I am the son of Tugai Bey; and
from the Dnieper to the Danube there is no greater name among the
Tartars.” After a while he added: “What are Krychinski, Tarasovski,
and others to me? It is not a question of them alone, or of some
thousands of Lithuanian or Podolian Tartars, but of the whole
Commonwealth. They say that in spring a great war will rise with
the power of the Sultan; but only give me permission, and I will
cause such a seething among the Tartars that the Sultan himself
will scald his hands.”
“In God’s name, who are you, Azya?” cried Pan Bogush.
The young man raised his head: “The coming hetman of the Tartars!”
A gleam of the fire fell at that moment on Azya, lighting his
face, which was at once cruel and beautiful. And it seemed to Pan
Bogush that some new man was standing before him, such was the
greatness and pride beating from the person of the young Tartar.
Pan Bogush felt also that Azya was speaking the truth. If such
a proclamation of the hetman were published, all the Lithuanian
and Podolian Tartars would return without fail, and very many of
the wild Tartars would follow them. The old noble knew passing
well the Crimea, in which he had been twice as a captive, and,
ransomed by the hetman, had been afterward an envoy; he knew the
court of Bagchesarai; he knew the hordes living from the Don to the
Dobrudja; he knew that in winter many villages were depopulated
by hunger; he knew that the despotism and rapacity of the Khan’s
baskaks were disgusting to the murzas; that in the Crimea itself
it came often to rebellion; he understood at once, then, that rich
lands and privileges would entice without fail all those for whom
it was evil, narrow, or dangerous in their old homesteads. They
would be enticed most surely if the son of Tugai Bey raised the
call. He alone could do this,--no other. He, through the renown of
his father, might rouse villages, involve one half of the Crimea
against the other half, bring in the wild horde of Belgrod, and
shake the whole power of the Khan,--nay, even that of the Sultan.
Should the hetman desire to take advantage of the occasion, he
might consider Tugai Bey’s son as a man sent by Providence itself.
Pan Bogush began then to look with another eye on Azya, and to
wonder more and more how such thoughts could be hatched in his
head. And the sweat was in drops like pearl on the forehead of the
knight, so immense did those thoughts seem to him. Still, doubt
remained yet in his soul; therefore he said, after a while,--
“And do you know that there would have to be war with Turkey over
such a question?”
“There will be war as it is. Why did they command the horde to
march to Adrianople? There will be war unless dissensions rise in
the Sultan’s dominions; and if it comes to taking the field, half
the horde will be on our side.”
“For every point the rogue has an argument,” thought Pan Bogush.
“It turns one’s head,” said he, after a while, “You see, Azya, in
every case it is not an easy thing. What would the king say, what
the chancellor, the estates, and all the nobles, for the greater
part hostile to the hetman?”
“I need only the permission of the hetman on paper; and when we
are once here, let them drive us out! Who will drive us out, and
with what? You would be glad to squeeze the Zaporojians out of the
Saitch, but you cannot in any way.”
“The hetman will dread the responsibility.”
“Behind the hetman will be fifty thousand sabres of the horde,
besides the troops which he has in hand.”
“But the Cossacks? Do you forget the Cossacks? They will begin
opposition at once.”
“We are needed here specially to keep a sword hanging over the
Cossack neck. Through whom has Doroshenko support? Through the
Tartars! Let me take the Tartars in hand, Doroshenko must beat with
his forehead to the hetman.”
Here Azya stretched out his palm and opened his fingers like the
talons of an eagle; then he grasped after the hilt of his sabre.
“This is the way we will show the Cossacks law! They will become
serfs, and we will hold the Ukraine. Do you hear, Pan Bogush? You
think that I am a small man; but I am not so small as it seems
to Novoveski, the commandant of this place, and you, Pan Bogush.
Behold, I have been thinking over this day and night, till I have
grown thin, till my face is sunken. Look at it, your grace; it has
grown black. But what I have thought out, I have thought out well;
and therefore I tell you that in me there are resources and power.
You see yourself that these are great things. Go to the hetman, but
go quickly. Lay the question before him; let him give me a letter
touching this matter, and I shall not care about the estates. The
hetman has a great soul; the hetman will know that this is power
and resource. Tell the hetman that I am Tugai Bey’s son; that I
alone can do this. Lay it before him, let him consent to it; but
in God’s name, let it be done in time, while there is snow on the
steppe, before spring, for in spring there will be war! Go at once
and return at once, so that I may know quickly what I am to do.”
Pan Bogush did not observe even that Azya spoke in a tone of
command, as if he were a hetman giving instructions to his officer.
“To-morrow I will rest,” said he; “and after to-morrow I will set
out. God grant me to find the hetman in Yavorov! Decision is quick
with him, and soon you will have an answer.”
“What does your grace think,--will the hetman consent?”
“Perhaps he will command you to come to him; do not go to Rashkoff,
then, at present,--you can go more quickly to Yavorov from this
place. Whether he will agree, I know not; but he will take the
matter under prompt consideration, for you present powerful
reasons. By the living God, I did not expect this of you; but I see
now that you are an uncommon man, and that the Lord God predestined
you to greatness. Well, Azya, Azya! Lieutenant in a Tartar
squadron, nothing more, and such things are in his head that fear
seizes a man! Now I shall not wonder even if I see a heron-feather
in your cap, and a bunchuk above you. I believe now what you tell
me,--that these thoughts have been burning you in the nighttime. I
will go at once, the day after to-morrow; but I will rest a little.
Now I will leave you, for it is late, and my head is as noisy as a
saw-mill. Be with God, Azya! My temples are aching as if I had been
drunk. Be with God, Azya, son of Tugai Bey!”
Here Pan Bogush pressed the thin hand of the Tartar, and turned
toward the door; but on the threshold he stopped again, and said,
“How is this? New troops for the Commonwealth; a sword ready above
the neck of the Cossack; Doroshenko conquered; dissension in the
Crimea; the Turkish power weakened; an end to the raids against
Russia,--for God’s sake!”
When he had said this, Pan Bogush went out. Azya looked after him
a while, and whispered, “But for me a bunchuk, a baton, and, with
consent or without, she. Otherwise woe to you!”
Then he finished the gorailka, and threw himself on to the bed,
covered with skins. The fire had gone down in the chimney; but
through the window came in the clear rays of the moon, which had
risen high in the cold wintry sky. Azya lay for some time quietly,
but evidently was unable to sleep. At last he rose, approached
the window, and looked at the moon, sailing like a ship through
the infinite solitudes of heaven. The young Tartar looked at it
long; at last he placed his fists on his breast, pointed both
thumbs upward, and from the mouth of him who barely an hour before
had confessed Christ, came, in a half-chant, a half-drawl, in a
melancholy key,--
“La Allah illa Allah! Mahomet Rossul Allah!”