For answer I fell upon him with vigour. This last insult cut me deeply, wounding my vanity. I would show him what manner of child I was. If I might not wound the heart of a woman, I could at least cut to pieces any man who presumed to offend me!
Falbofsky was, I could see, surprised and alarmed by my skill with the sword. He had begun the fight leisurely, as one reserving his strength. Soon he was fencing with all his art, and fencing well. But this day I would take no denying, and within a few minutes I had him disarmed and at mercy. I think I should have given him the point without pity, but that his fair wife ran shrieking into the room at the moment, followed by servants, and implored me to spare him.
‘Chelminsky, do not slay,’ she cried. ‘Chelminsky, my friend! See, he is wounded already!’
I had not observed this. It was true, however; his sword-arm was soaked with blood.
‘Well, I will spare him,’ I said, ‘since you ask me!’ Whereupon I stalked from the room very proudly and happily, for I felt my honour had been amply vindicated.
CHAPTER III
Then I rode to Mazeppa’s house in order to find how he had fared in his ride home. To be sent riding back to one’s friends stripped of all clothes and tied like a pack to the horse is a shameful thing, and I intended to have my fun out of Mazeppa. He had striven daily to better me in the matter of the lady whose favour we both desired, and I was not sorry that to-day, at least, I had had the laugh of him. Who had seen him as he came jolting, naked, into the stable yard, I wondered! How he would hate the man or men who saw and released him—I knew Mazeppa well! Those men would not remain long in his service! Sweet Lady of Kazan! to ride naked and bound among one’s own servants! A shame indeed!
But to my surprise nothing was known of Mazeppa at his own house.
‘And the horse?’ I inquired.
The servant smiled. ‘It would need a clever horse to rid himself of our master!’ he said. ‘The Pan is a Cossack, and sticks to his horse like the devil to a weak soul! This day he rides the new horse, indeed—an untried Tartar beast from the Ukraine, bought from a merchant who brings a number for sale each year. But the horse is not foaled that can throw Mazeppa!’