“All this is very little!” replied Morphiliziy. “All this is quickly over and does not appease my desire for revenge. They must be captured alive and locked up one opposite the other, so that through the open windows of their dungeons they may see each other, and then I shall prepare my rival a spectacle that will wound him worse than fire, but afterwards I shall hand over to you Nina, and then there will be time to cut off their proud heads and throw them away to be eaten by the dogs!”
The Tsar grew silent, his face became still paler, his eyes stared out worse than before; he was so terrible to look at, that even the fearless warriors could not glance at him and hardly approached his horse and Noy’s, which they were hurrying on at full speed. The sun rose—they continued their ride, a whole day went by, the journey went on as before, and night overtook them again when they entered a forest. Noy announced that it was the same forest in which he had left the fugitives. The moon shone poorly from behind the eternal trees, it became necessary to get off the horses, which were left to the care of several warriors, but the others went on and soon found that little field of wild copse on which Cicero and Nina had rested, they even found the place where they had been sitting.
The grass was trodden down, it bore the traces of spilt wine and crumbs of bread—one large shrub was cut down—but there were no branches.
“They probably burned them in a wood-pile,” remarked Noy.
“Well, where then are the traces of the wood-pile?” replied Morphiliziy. Upon noticing that from the place where they stood onward the grass was trodden down and seemed to form a kind of road, all followed upon this track. By sunrise they left the forest and spread themselves out over a splendid meadow, which ended in a field. The track went on across the meadow to the very field, which was beginning to be worked by laborers.
Morphiliziy dispatched one of his warriors to ask to whom this field belonged and whether they had not seen two boys on horseback yesterday. The soldier returned with a peasant.
“This is the field of the tavad Bidandari, we are his men and did not work here yesterday, but we heard that our master had brought home some two youths, one of whom is ill, and to-day by the orders of the proprietor, my brother went for the znabar (a kind of doctor) on the seacoast.”
“Why, is it far to the sea?” asked Morphiliziy.
“Six or seven agatches” (an agatche is a little more than six and less than seven versts).
“What! is there no doctor nearer than that?” again asked Morphiliziy.