"Go to the devil!" said the Cossack.
"Oh, be quiet! I know that you are not for me."
Bogun looked into the foaming water on the wheel as if he wished himself to soothsay.
"Horpyna!" said he after a while.
"Well, what is it?"
"When I have gone will she be sorry for me?"
"If you are not willing to constrain her in Cossack fashion, then perhaps it is better for you to go."
"I will not, I cannot, I dare not. I know that she would die."
"Then maybe it is better for you to go. While she sees you she will not wish to know you, but when she has been a couple of months with me and Cheremis, you will be dearer to her."
"If she were well, I know what I should do. I should bring a priest from Rashkoff and have a marriage celebrated; but now I am afraid, for if she were frightened, she would die. You have seen yourself."
"Leave us in peace. What do you want of a priest and a marriage? You are not a real Cossack. I want neither Pole nor Russian priest here.
There are Dobrudja Tartars in Rashkoff, you want to get them on our shoulders too; and if you should bring them, how much of the princess would you see? What has got into your head? Go your way and come back."
"But look in the water and tell me what you see. Tell the truth and don"t lie, even if you should see me dead."
Dontsovna approached the mill-stream and raised a gate holding back the water at the fall. All at once the swift current rushed with redoubled force, the wheel began to turn more swiftly, until at last it was covered with liquid dust; the foam, beaten fine, rolled under the wheel like boiling water.
The witch bent her eyes into the boiling ma.s.s and seizing the tresses near her ears, began to cry,--
"I call! I call! Appear! In the oaken wheel, in the white foam, in the clear mist, whether evil, whether good, appear!"
Bogun approached and sat at her side. His face denoted fear and feverish curiosity.
"I see!" screamed the witch.
"What do you see?"
"The death of my brother. Two bullocks are drawing him on a stake."
"To the devil with your brother!" muttered Bogun, who wished to know something else.
For a time was heard only the thunder of the wheel whirling around in fury.
"Blue is my brother"s head, how blue! The ravens are tearing it," said the witch.
"What else do you see?"
"Nothing. Oh, how blue! I call! I call! In the oaken wheel, in the white foam, in the clear mist, appear! I see--"
"What?"
"A battle! The Poles are fleeing before the Cossacks."
"And I am pursuing?"
"I see you too. You encounter a little knight. Hur! hur! hur! Be on your guard against the little knight."
"And the princess?"
"She is not there. I see you again, and with you some one who is betraying you,--your false friend."
Bogun was devouring with his eyes at one instant the foam, at another Horpyna; and at the same time he worked with his brain to aid the soothsaying.
"What friend?"
"I don"t see. I don"t know whether old or young."
"Old, he must be old!"
"Maybe he is old!"
"I know who he is. He has betrayed me once already. An old n.o.ble with a blue beard and a white eye. Death to him! But he is not a friend of mine."
"He is lying in wait for you, I see again--Stop! the princess is here too; she is in a crown, a white dress, above her a hawk."
"That is I."
"Maybe it is. A hawk--or a falcon? A hawk!"
"That is I."
"Wait! All has vanished. In the oaken wheel, in the white foam-- Oh!
oh! many soldiers, many Cossacks, oh, many, like trees in the forest or thistles in the steppes; and you are above all,--they are bearing three bunchuk standards before you."
"And the princess is with me?"
"She is not; you are in the camp."
The wheel roared till the whole mill trembled.
"Oh, how much blood, how much blood! how many corpses,--wolves above them, ravens above them, plague above them! Corpses and corpses,--far away nothing but corpses, nothing to be seen but blood!"
Suddenly a breath of wind whirled the mist from the wheel; and at the same time higher up above the mill appeared the deformed Cheremis with a bundle of wood on his shoulders.
"Cheremis, let down the sluice!" cried the girl.
When she had said this she went to wash her hands and face in the stream, and the dwarf stopped the water at once.
Bogun sat in thought. He was roused first by the coming of Horpyna.