“Ah, well, I’ll try and find another way. And I’ll take all the risks. Was that what you were all wrangling about when I came in the hut just now?”
“Yes. She’s done harm enough, already. That man’s broken leg, three good horses killed, and now my arm;” and he cursed her again bitterly. “It’ll be you next,” he added.
“It’ll not be my arm that she breaks,” was my thought.
“What he says is true,” interposed the man whom I had shot. “She’s a witch and a devil. Else how did she know when to escape and how to ride here to you?”
“Answer that, Burgwan,” said Karasch, confidently. “How could she know, if she weren’t a witch?”
Gartski came in then to say the horses were ready, and his entrance made any reply unnecessary, for Karasch rose at once, went out and mounted.
“I’ll bring him back,” he said, “I know I can find him unless that devil blinds the track.”
“Why should she do that, as it’s for her own advantage?” I asked; but he and Andreas were already moving off, and his answer was lost in the night air.
The storm had passed and the rain ceased, and as I watched the two men ride off, the moon came out from behind the clouds, so that I could follow the horses for some distance down the ravine. As soon as they had passed out of sight I turned to the hut.
I did not enter, but stood near the little window and leant against the wall thinking. The tale I had heard concerning the girl had made me very thoughtful. Those who know anything of the ignorant superstition of the peasantry of the Balkans will best appreciate the danger to her of that grim reputation. I had heard scores of stories of men and women who had been done to death with merciless barbarity for witchcraft. The mere charge itself was enough to turn from them any chance of fair trial and justice: and I knew there was not one of the men with me who would not have thought he was doing a Christian act to strangle her. To kill her was to aim a blow at the devil: the accepted duty of every God-fearing man and woman.