XXXV: THE DWARF AND I
FOR three days and nights the dwarf and I rode southward, and ever southward, and so long and tedious was the journey and so eternal the sameness of the level landscape that it seemed as if we rode and rode, without ever advancing a day’s journey. Ah! those steppes of southern Russia, wide and level and unending; sweeping away from us on every side, until they seemed to drop over the rim of the world. They were green then, for it was June, and the cattle grazed where, after a while, there would be only a dry desert swept by the south winds. Not a tree grew near us, only in the upper courses of the rivers was there timber, and the moujiks burned straw and dried dung.
And while we rode the dwarf chattered to me of the power of the great Prince Voronin, and the rumours, current on the back stairs of the palace, of Sophia’s jealousy of Prince Galitsyn, and his love for the Princess Daria. A conversation that furnished gall and wormwood in plenty for my diet, and while showing me the insignificance of my cause and my efforts, only served to make me the more obstinate; for I have that in me that will not yield. As I journeyed, however, I reflected that I was no longer a youth, nor so handsome and graceful as to please a young girl’s eye at once, and here my rank and fortune counted as nothing. I found myself examining my suit—a plain and dark one of taffeta—such as a gentleman might wear on a journey, but not fit for the great occasion of wooing a princess, yet the change of apparel, that I had provided, was scarcely more gaudy, and I grew peevish, remembered that I had grey hairs besides, and a stern cast of countenance, and was almost tempted to ask Maluta’s opinion, but forbore.
Yet, for all my ill-humour at my own appearance, which was that of a soldier rather than a courtier, I could not mend matters, and so went on, pushing forward as rapidly as I could, for something warned me not to linger on the road. We passed through the hamlets as quickly as we could, being ever assailed there by the curious and the idle, and, indeed, but for the need of supplies, I would not have troubled them. Thus we lay ever at night under the stars and found no inconvenience, save on the last night of our journey, when we were already on the outskirts of the prince’s domain. We had learned, by diligent inquiry, that his party had preceded us by two days only, and that there were women in it, so I pressed on, and when we were but a day’s journey from the great house of Voronin, we lay in a deserted hut to pass the night. Here there were trees about us, sparsely set, but gigantic, and the prince’s château was but a short distance from the village below us, where the serfs dwelt together, they who tilled the fields about us, and served him night and day.
It was that evening while we were at supper that I asked Maluta if he would follow me to France, and, at the question, his small face seemed to wither, his eyes rolled, and his great wing-like ears quivered.
“Have I not served my lord?” he asked humbly.
“So faithfully that I would fain reward you,” I replied; “in France I have a house and lands by the sea; and there you could live and die in peace, under my protection. Will you follow me, Maluta?”
He shivered and looked over his shoulder. In the west the red of sunset trailed upward toward the zenith, in long scarlet feathers; on the wide scene shadows fell.
“Have I not served my lord?” he repeated; “for I owed him my life—for him have I risked it!”
“So you have!” I retorted kindly. I was lying full-length on the grass and I rose now on my elbow; “and I would repay you.”
He fell on his knees. “Then leave me here, O my master,” he whimpered; “here was I born, here have I lived, here, also, will I die. In the strange land I should perish—my heart would be empty. I should never see the great white city again—I should die! Yet, I owe my life to you, O excellency, and if you will it—take it!”
“Saint Denis, you little rogue!” I exclaimed; “do you think I would kill you by taking you away? But what can you do here?”
He knelt meekly, his hands clasped, his eyes rolled up, the picture of a saint, though he was as arrant a little knave as ever lived, when he wanted to be.
“Here I can live,” he said, looking at me with that sidelong glance of his; “here I see the great tower of Ivan Veliki, I hear the bells, I dance for their czarish majesties, and in the kitchens of the palace are pickled mushrooms, and oil of cinnamon, and sterlet soup, and pampushki, and——”
I laughed aloud; I recollected his greedy feast on the day of his rescue. Here was a soul that could not forsake the flesh-pots.
“There are also dainties in France, and your feast cakes, your pampushki, are but flour and garlic,” I said, but he shook his head dismally.
“At least, I will make you independent of the kitchens,” I said; “money I can give you.”
As I spoke, one of the horses—startled, as I think, by some noise of the trees—plunged, and but for his halter would have run away. I started to my feet and fastened both more securely, but Maluta fell to trembling and crossing himself.
“’Tis the second time,” he whispered; “’tis Koshchei or one of his legion!”
Koshchei, one of the demons of the forest, was the terror of the Russian heart, and believed in, as I think, more devoutly than the Virgin and the saints.
“’Tis a sure sign of danger,” cried Maluta, “and see yonder, O excellency, the storm-cloud rises. Stribog, the god of the winds, is abroad; ’twill be a wild night—we must take the beasts into the hut, for if the tempest comes and they escape us, we cannot walk.”
The wisdom of this and his superior knowledge of the Russian climate made me comply, and it was well, for though we were crowded to the door of the hovel, the beasts were safe, and it was a night of the wildest. The great black storm-cloud rolled up, covering the heavens and the earth with the blackness of the pit, and the wind, rising steadily, swept over those wide plains with furious power. The few trees that stood about us bent and creaked, feeble as reeds, and the rain came down in torrents, and all through the fury of the tempest Maluta shouted a weird song, kneeling sometimes, while the water swirled around his little figure, and again lifting his arms over his head and dancing to and fro, swaying back and forth, and calling for protection on Koshchei and his legion of evil spirits. Once or twice, as the storm broke above us, in all its fury, and the wind came sweeping wild and mighty across the steppes, and the black heavens showed strange copperish streaks, Maluta fell face downward, at the threshold of the hut, and seemed to wrestle with an invisible foe, crying to me that the place was filled with evil spirits and that Koshchei the Deathless rode the wind, until—between the little demon-worshipper and the demon of the tempest—I was fairly beset, and crossed myself to be sure that I was yet a Christian. And through all those long hours the wind wailed and the dwarf chanted, until, at last, morning broke suddenly on the wild scene and little by little the tempest subsided.
But it was full noonday before we could set out, and having to advance cautiously now, to avoid questions, we could not reach the house before nightfall. But we were nearing it and my heart beat high, although the dwarf rode beside me, a drooping figure, exhausted doubtless by his unearthly vigil, and fearful of meeting the evil spirits of the forest, the Leshy and the Baba Yaga.
It was toward the late hours of the afternoon that we became aware that a party—a large one, too—travelled to the westward of us, and in the same direction. To avoid them we turned further east and, though we made good speed, night had already fallen before we saw the lights of a large village, and Maluta told me that it lay between us and the palace of Prince Voronin. Determined to avoid all suspicion, we dismounted at the edge of the hamlet, and the dwarf agreed to stay with the horses while I went forward to reconnoitre, though he did not care for the arrangement, for he distrusted my ability as a scout, and feared to be alone in the wood. However, I had no mind to play a secondary part here and one of waiting, so I left him on duty with the horses, and slipping past the first straggling houses of the settlement sought for the road to the prince’s château, and I was led to find this by the peasants themselves, who were all thronging toward the great house, drawn—as I was to learn—by the prospect of a spectacle. Using all the precaution I could, I advanced along the outskirts of the throng and finally mingled with it unnoticed, as the serfs pressed on behind a procession of flaming torches that was winding up the road that led to the great house before us.
Even in the gloom of early nightfall I could distinguish the outlines of a large and imposing building, looming grandly amidst the level country, and surrounded by the huts of the village, which were little more than a growth of mushrooms by comparison. But, from what I heard about me, and from what I saw, I gathered that the party of travellers, that Maluta and I had avoided, had arrived and were proceeding in state to the castle, where—from the brightly illumined court-yard—I knew they were expected. Pushing my way carefully, but steadily, to the front, that I might be sure of drifting into the court with the crowd, I came, at last, close to the torches and saw the glint of scarlet tunics, and then intuition warned me and I was not surprised to recognise the man who rode—in state—through the great gateway, with the flare of torches flashing on his jewels and the gold brocade of his mantle. Mounted on a splendid horse and riding like a soldier and a prince, with his footmen before him and behind, was my rival, Basil Galitsyn.
And, as he dismounted in the centre of the court-yard, I entered the gateway unchallenged and passed along to the right, so that I almost faced him. Yet he did not see me—he was looking at the door and beyond it.