LITMIR.BIZ

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foul, bloody mass, without eyes, without nose or mouth, – only the enormous mustaches were sticking out of the dreadful pool. Kmita pushed the light farther. Next in order lay Zend, with grinning teeth and eyes protruding, in which in glassy fixedness was terror before death. The third in the row, Ranitski, had his eyes closed, and over his whole face were spots, white, bloody, and dark. Kmita took the light farther. Fourth lay Kokosinski, – the dearest to Kmita of all his officers, being his former near neighbor. He seemed to sleep quietly, but in the side of his neck was to be seen a large wound surely given with a thrust. Fifth in the row lay the gigantic Kulvyets-Hippocentaurus, with the vest torn on his bosom and his face slashed many times. Kmita brought the light near each face; and when at last he brought it to the sixth, Rekuts, it seemed that the lids of the unfortunate victim quivered a little from the gleam.

      Kmita put the light on the floor and began to shake the wounded man gently. After the eyelids the face began to move, the eyes and mouth opened and closed in turn.

      "Rekuts, Rekuts, it is I!" said Kmita.

      The eyes of Rekuts opened for a moment; he recognized the face of his friend, and groaned in a low voice, "Yendrus-a priest-"

      "Who killed you?" cried Kmita, seizing himself by the hair.

      "Bu-try-my-" (The Butryms), answered he, in a voice so low that it was barely audible. Then he stretched himself, grew stiff, his open eyes became fixed, and he died.

      Kmita went in silence to the table, put the tallow lamp upon it, sat down in an armchair, and began to pass his hands over his face like a man who waking from sleep does not know yet whether he is awake or still sees dream figures before his eyes. Then he looked again on the bodies lying in the darkness. Cold sweat came out on his forehead, the hair rose on his head, and suddenly he shouted so terribly that the panes rattled in the windows, -

      "Come hither, every living man! come hither!"

      The soldiers, who had disposed themselves in the servants' hall, heard that cry and fell into the room with a rush. Kmita showed them with his hand the corpses at the wall.

      "Murdered! murdered!" repeated he, with hoarse voice.

      They ran to look; some came with a taper, and held it before the eyes of the dead men. After the first moment of astonishment came noise and confusion. Those hurried in who had found places in the stables and barns. The whole house was bright with light, swarming with men; and in the midst of all that whirl, shouting, and questioning, the dead lay at the wall unmoved and quiet, indifferent to everything, and, in contradiction to their own nature, calm. The souls had gone out of them, and their bodies could not be raised by the trumpet to battle, or the sound of the goblets to feasting.

      Meanwhile in the din of the soldiers shouts of threatening and rage rose higher and higher each instant. Kmita, who till that moment had been as it were unconscious, sprang up suddenly and shouted, "To horse!"

      Everything living moved toward the door. Half an hour had not passed when more than one hundred horsemen were rushing with breakneck speed over the broad snowy road, and at the head of them flew Pan Andrei, as if possessed of a demon, bareheaded and with a naked sabre in his hand. In the still night was heard on every side the wild shouts: "Slay! kill!"

      The moon had reached just the highest point on its road through the sky, when suddenly its beams began to be mingled and mixed with a rosy light, rising as it were from under the ground; gradually the heavens grew red and still redder as if from the rising dawn, till at last a bloody glare filled the whole neighborhood. One sea of fire raged over the gigantic village of the Butryms; and the wild soldiers of Kmita, in the midst of smoke, burning, and sparks bursting in columns to the sky, cut down the population, terrified and blinded from fright.

      The inhabitants of the nearer villages sprang from their sleep. The greater and smaller companies of the Smoky Gostsyeviches and Stakyans, Gashtovts and Domasheviches, collected on the road before their houses, and looking in the direction of the fire, gave alarm from mouth to mouth: "It must be that an enemy has broken in and is burning the Butryms, – that is an unusual fire!"

      The report of muskets coming at intervals from the distance confirmed this supposition.

      "Let us go to assist them!" cried the bolder; "let us not leave our brothers to perish!"

      And when the older ones spoke thus, the younger, who on account of the winter threshing had not gone to Rossyeni, mounted their horses. In Krakin and in Upita they had begun to ring the church bells.

      In Vodokty a quiet knocking at the door roused Panna Aleksandra.

      "Olenka, get up!" cried Panna Kulvyets.

      "Come in, Aunt, what is the matter?"

      "They are burning Volmontovichi!"

      "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"

      "Shots are heard, there is a battle! God have mercy on us!"

      Olenka screamed terribly; then she sprang out of bed and began to throw on her clothes hurriedly. Her body trembled as in a fever. She alone guessed in a moment what manner of enemy had attacked the ill-fated Butryms.

      After a while the awakened women of the whole house rushed into the room with crying and sobbing. Olenka threw herself on her knees before an image; they followed her example, and all began to repeat aloud the litany for the dying.

      They had scarcely gone through half of it when a violent pounding shook the door of the antechamber. The women sprang to their feet; a cry of alarm was rent from their breasts.

      "Do not open! do not open!"

      The pounding was heard with redoubled force; it seemed that the door would spring from its hinges. That moment the youth Kostek rushed into the midst of the assembled women.

      "Panna!" cried he, "some man is knocking; shall I open or not?"

      "Is he alone?"

      "Alone."

      "Go open."

      The youth hurried away. She, taking a light, passed into the dining-room; after her, Panna Kulvyets and all the spinning-women.

      She had barely put the light on the table when in the antechamber was heard the rattle of iron bolts, the creak of the opening door; and before the eyes of the women appeared Pan Kmita, terrible, black from smoke, bloody, panting, with madness in his eyes.

      "My horse has fallen at the forest," cried he; "they are pursuing me!"

      Panna Aleksandra fixed her eyes on him: "Did you burn Volmontovichi?"

      "I-I-"

      He wanted to say something more, when from the side of the road and the woods came the sound of voices and the tramp of horses approaching with uncommon rapidity.

      "The devils are after my soul; let them have it!" cried Kmita, as if in a fever.

      Panna Aleksandra that moment turned to the women. "If they ask, say there is no one here; and now go to the servants' hall and come here at daylight!" Then to Kmita: "Go in there," said she, pointing to an adjoining room; and almost by force she pushed him through the open door, which she shut immediately.

      Meanwhile armed men filled the front yard; and in the twinkle of an eye the Butryms, Gostsyeviches, Domasheviches, with others, burst into the house. Seeing the lady, they halted in the dining-room; but she, standing with a light in her hand, stopped with her person the passage to doors beyond.

      "Men, what has happened? What do you want?" asked she, without blinking an eye before the terrible looks and the ominous gleam of drawn sabres.

      "Kmita has burned Volmontovichi!" cried the nobles, in a chorus. "He has slaughtered men, women, children, – Kmita did this."

      "We have killed his men," said Yuzva Butrym; "now we are seeking his own head."

      "His head, his blood! Cut down the murderer!"

      "Pursue him!" cried the lady. "Why do you stand here? Pursue him!"

      "Is he not hidden here? We found his horse at the woods."

      "He is not here! The house was closed. Look for him in the stables and barns."

      "He

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