Fire in the Steppe (62 page)

"You have deceived me," said he. "The Poles cannot be so weak, since they seek us even here. You told me that Sobieski would not defend Kamenyets, and now he is surely in front of us, with his whole army."

The vizir and kaimakan tried to explain to their lord that this might be some detached band of robbers; but in view of the muskets and of straps, in which there were dragoon jackets, they did not believe that themselves. The recent expedition of Sobieski to the Ukraine, daring beyond every measure, but for all that victorious, permitted the supposition that the terrible leader intended to anticipate the enemy this time as well as the other.

"He has no troops," said the grand vizir to the kaimakan, while coming out from the council; "but there is a lion in him which knows nothing of fear. If he has collected even a few thousand, and is here, we shall march in blood to Hotin."

"I should like to measure strength with him," said young Kara Mustafa.

"May God avert from you misfortune!" answered the grand vizir.

By degrees, however, the Belgrod and Dobrudja chambuls convinced themselves that there were not only no large bodies of troops, but no troops at all in the neighborhood. They discovered the trail of a detachment numbering about three hundred horse, which moved hurriedly toward the Dniester. The Tartars, remembering the fate of Azya's men, made no pursuit, out of fear of an ambush. The attack remained as something astonishing and unexplained; but quiet came back by degrees to the Ordu i Humayun, and the armies of the Padishah began again to advance like an inundation.

Meanwhile, Pan Adam was returning safely with his living booty to Rashkoff. He went hurriedly, but as experienced scouts learned on the second day that there was no pursuit, he advanced, notwithstanding his haste, at a gait not to weary the horses over-much. Azya, fastened with cords to the back of the horse, was always between Pan Adam and Lusnia. He had two ribs broken, and had become wonderfully weak, for even the wound given him by Basia in the face opened from his struggle with Pan Adam and from riding with head hanging down. The terrible sergeant was careful that he should not die before reaching Rashkoff, and thus baffle revenge. The young Tartar wanted to die. Knowing what awaited him, he determined first of all to kill himself with hunger, and would not take food; but Lusnia opened his set teeth with a knife, and forced into his mouth gorailka and Moldavian wine, in which biscuits, rubbed to dust, had been mixed. At the places of halting, they threw water on his face, lest the wounds of his eye and his nose, on which flies and gnats had settled thickly during the journey, should mortify, and bring premature death to the ill-fated man.

Pan Adam did not speak to him on the road. Once only, at the beginning of the journey, when Azya, at the price of his freedom and life, offered to return Zosia and Eva, did the lieutenant say to him,—

"Thou liest, dog! Both were sold by thee to a merchant of Stambul, who will sell them again in the bazaar."

And straightway they brought Eliashevich, who said in presence of all,—

"It is so, Effendi. You sold her without knowing to whom; and Adurovich sold the bagadyr's
^[30]
sister, though she was with child by him."

After these words, it seemed for a while to Azya that Novoveski would crush him at once in his terrible grasp. Afterwards, when he had lost all hope, he resolved to bring the young giant to kill him in a transport of rage, and in that way spare himself future torment; since Novoveski, unwilling to let his captive out of sight, rode always near him, Azya began to boast beyond measure and shamelessly of all that he had done. He told how he had killed old Novoveski, how he had kept Zosia Boski in the tent, how he gloated over her innocence, how he had torn her body with rods, and kicked her. The sweat rolled off the pale face of Pan Adam in thick drops. He listened; he had not the power, he had not the wish to go away. He listened eagerly, his hands quivered, his body shook convulsively; still he mastered himself, and did not kill.

But Azya, while tormenting his enemy, tormented himself, for his narratives brought to his mind his present misfortune. Not long before, he was commanding men, living in luxury, a murza, a favorite of the young kaimakan; now, lashed to the back of a horse, and eaten alive by flies, he was travelling on to a terrible death. Relief came to him when, from the pain of his wounds, and from suffering, he fainted. This happened with growing frequency, so that Lusnia began to fear that he might not bring him alive. But they travelled night and day, giving only as much rest to the horses as was absolutely needful, and Rashkoff was ever nearer and nearer. Still the horned soul of the Tartar would not leave the afflicted body. But during the last days he was in a continual fever, and at times he fell into an oppressive sleep. More than once in that fever or sleep he dreamed that he was still in Hreptyoff, that he had to go with Volodyovski to a great war; again that he was conducting Basia to Rashkoff; again that he had borne her away, and hidden her in his tent; at times in the fever he saw battles and slaughter, in which, as hetman of the Polish Tartars, he was giving orders from under his bunchuk. But awakening came, and with it consciousness. Opening his eyes, he saw the face of Novoveski, the face of Lusnia, the helmets of the dragoons, who had thrown aside the sheepskin caps of the horseherds; and all that reality was so dreadful that it seemed to him a genuine nightmare. Every movement of the horse tortured him; his wounds burned him increasingly; and again he fainted. Pierced with pain, he recovered consciousness, to fall into a fever, and with it into a dream, to wake up again.

There were moments in which it seemed to him impossible that he, such a wretched man, could be Azya, the son of Tugai Bey; that his life, which was full of uncommon events, and which seemed to promise a great destiny, was to end with such suddenness, and so terribly.

At times too it came to his head that after torments and death he would go straightway to paradise; but because once he had professed Christianity, and had lived long among Christians, fear seized him at the thought of Christ. Christ would have no pity on him; if the Prophet had been mightier than Christ, he would not have given him into the hands of Pan Adam. Perhaps, however, the Prophet would show pity yet, and take the soul out of him before Pan Adam would kill him with torture.

Meanwhile, Rashkoff was at hand. They entered a country of cliffs, which indicated the vicinity of the Dniester. Azya in the evening fell into a condition half feverish, half conscious, in which illusions were mingled with reality. It seemed to him that they had arrived, that they had stopped, that he heard around him the words "Rashkoff! Rashkoff!" Next it seemed to him that he heard the noise of axes cutting wood.

Then he felt that men were dashing cold water on his head, and then for a long time they were pouring gorailka into his mouth. After that he recovered entirely. Above him was a starry night, and around him many torches were gleaming. To his ears came the words,—

"Is he conscious?"

"Conscious. He seems in his mind."

And that moment he saw above him the face of Lusnia.

"Well, brother," said the sergeant, in a calm voice, "the hour is on thee!"

Azya was lying on his back and breathing freely, for his arms were stretched upward at both sides of his head, by reason of which his expanded breast moved more freely and received more air than when he was lying lashed to the back of the horse. But he could not move his hands, for they were tied above his head to an oak staff which was placed at right angles to his shoulders, and were bound with straw steeped in tar. Azya divined in a moment why this was done; but at that moment he saw other preparations also, which announced that his torture would be long and ghastly. He was undressed from his waist to his feet; and raising his head somewhat, he saw between his naked knees a freshly trimmed, pointed stake, the larger end of which was placed against the butt of a tree. From each of his feet there went a rope ending with a whiffletree, to which a horse was attached. By the light of the torches Azya could see only the rumps of the horses and two men, standing somewhat farther on, who evidently were holding the horses by the head.

The hapless man took in these preparations at a glance; then, looking at the heavens, it is unknown why, he saw stars and the gleaming crescent of the moon.

"They will draw me on," thought he.

And at once he closed his teeth so firmly that a spasm seized his jaws. Sweat came out on his forehead, and at the same time his face became cold, for the blood rushed away from it. Then it seemed to him that the earth was fleeing from under his shoulders, that his body was flying and flying into some fathomless abyss. For a while he lost consciousness of time, of place, and of what they were doing to him. The sergeant opened Azya's mouth with a knife, and poured in more gorailka.

He coughed and spat out the burning liquor, but was forced to swallow some of it. Then he fell into a wonderful condition: he was not drunk; on the contrary, his mind had never been clearer, nor his thought quicker. He saw what they were doing, he understood everything; but an uncommon excitement seized him, as it were,—impatience that all was lasting so long, and that nothing was beginning yet.

Next heavy steps were heard near by, and before him stood Pan Adam. At sight of him all the veins in the Tartar quivered. Lusnia he did not fear; he despised him too much. But Pan Adam he did not despise; indeed, he had no reason to despise him; on the contrary, every look of his face filled Azya's soul with a certain superstitious dread and repulsion. He thought to himself at that moment, "I am in his power; I fear him!" and that was such a terrible feeling that under its influence the hair stiffened on the head of Tugai Bey's son.

"For what thou hast done, thou wilt perish in torment," said Pan Adam.

The Tartar gave no answer, but began to pant audibly.

Novoveski withdrew, and then followed a silence which was broken by Lusnia.

"Thou didst raise thy hand on the lady," said he, with a hoarse voice; "but now the lady is at home with her husband, and thou art in our hands. Thy hour has come!"

With those words the act of torture began for Azya. That terrible man learned at the hour of his death that his treason and cruelty had profited nothing. If even Basia had died on the road, he would have had the consolation that though not in his, she would not be in any man's, possession; and that solace was taken from him just then, when the point of the stake was at an ell's length from his body. All had been in vain. So many treasons, so much blood, so much impending punishment for nothing,—for nothing whatever!

Lusnia did not know how grievous those words had made death to Azya; had he known, he would have repeated them during the whole journey.

But there was no time for regrets then; everything must give way before the execution. Lusnia stooped down, and taking Azya's hips in both his hands to give them direction, called to the men holding the horses,—

"Move! but slowly and together!"

The horses moved; the straightened ropes pulled Azya's legs. In a twinkle his body was drawn along the earth and met the point of the stake. Then the point commenced to sink in him, and something dreadful began,—something repugnant to nature and the feelings of man. The bones of the unfortunate moved apart from one another; his body gave way in two directions; pain indescribable, so awful that it almost bounds on some monstrous delight, penetrated his being. The stake sank more and more deeply. Azya fixed his jaws, but he could not endure; his teeth were bared in a ghastly grin, and out of his throat came the cry, "A! a! a!" like the croaking of a raven.

"Slowly!" commanded the sergeant.

Azya repeated his terrible cry more and more quickly.

"Art croaking?" inquired the sergeant.

Then he called to the men,—

"Stop! together! There, it is done," said he, turning to Azya, who had grown silent at once, and in whose throat only a deep rattling was heard.

The horses were taken out quickly; then men raised the stake, planted the large end of it in a hole prepared purposely, and packed earth around it. The son of Tugai Bey looked from above on that work. He was conscious. That hideous species of punishment is in this the more dreadful, that victims drawn on to the stake live sometimes three days. Azya's head was hanging on his breast; his lips were moving, smacking, as if he were chewing something and tasting it. He felt then a great faintness, and saw before him, as it were, a boundless, whitish mist, which, it is unknown wherefore, seemed to him terrible; but in that mist he recognized the faces of the sergeant and the dragoons, he saw that he was on the stake, that the weight of his body was sinking him deeper and deeper. Then he began to grow numb from the feet, and began to be less and less sensitive to pain.

At times darkness hid from him that whitish mist; then he blinked with his one seeing eye, wishing to see and behold everything till death. His gaze passed with particular persistence from torch to torch, for it seemed to him that around each flame there was a rainbow circle.

But his torture was not ended; after a while the sergeant approached the stake with an auger in his hand, and cried to those standing near,—

"Lift me up."

Two strong men raised him aloft. Azya began to look at him closely, blinking, as if he wished to know what kind of man was climbing up to his height. Then the sergeant said,—

"The lady knocked out one eye, and I promised myself to bore out the other."

When he had said this, he put the point into the pupil, twisted once and a second time, and when the lid and delicate skin surrounding the eye were wound around the spiral of the auger, he jerked.

Then from the two eye-sockets of Azya two streams of blood flowed, and they flowed like two streams of tears down his face. His face itself grew pale and still paler. The dragoons extinguished the torches in silence, as if in shame that light had shone on a deed of such ghastliness; and from the crescent of the moon alone fell silvery though not very bright rays on the body of Azya. His head fell entirely on his breast; but his hands, bound to the oak staff, and enveloped in straw steeped in tar, were pointing toward the sky, as if that son of the Orient were calling the vengeance of the Turkish crescent on his executioners.