‘Would you marry her, Mazeppa?’ I cried, ‘or would it be a mere spiriting away of the girl?’
‘Oh, it is too soon to speak of such things,’ he replied, smiling; ‘first find her, my friend; earn my gratitude, for, seriously, I am badly thrown by her disappearance.’
‘Well, I shall see what I can do!’ I replied; but I left Mazeppa with my tongue in my cheek; for this time, for once, I had out-foxed him. I had the wench under my thumb, and he had revealed his game. A good day’s work, by the saints!
CHAPTER XIX
From this time things began to go somewhat contrariwise. There came excitements and perils and failures, together with some successes and certain moments of great joy; but the smoothness which had been my portion in life during late years became changed, and I travelled over rough and stony roads.
There was uproar in the Kurbatof mansion when it was discovered that Vera the fair had fled without farewell. Old Kurbatof, that proud and angry old Boyar, was furious with rage.
‘The minx has wrecked her own fortune,’ he cried; ‘she who might have been the first woman in the land! I tell you the Tsar is sick with love for the wench—dear saints in Heaven! and she must needs object to this in him and to that, and disappear rather than share the throne with him. Oh, the fool; the blind, senseless minx! As if the husband mattered when a crown and sceptre go with him!’
‘Maybe she is in love with some young coxcomb, Boyar!’ ventured a servant; but the Boyar fell upon him and struck him with his dubina so that the fellow lay for a week and groaned.
‘Let her be a hundred times in love, what matters?’ he roared. Then he assembled the household and gave out that if any man dared whisper outside the house that the Barishnya Vera had disappeared he should be punished with fifty blows of the knout and sent to the estate to work in the fields. ‘Let her be found before the bride-choosing,’ he said, ‘and there shall be one hundred roubles for the finder. Till she is found not a word—remember, one and all, or I swear the devil shall be a gentler master than I!’
Notwithstanding which threats, however, the secret did leak out—as shall presently be seen—though Vera’s departure was fortunately not known at the palace, where all were busy with the rest of the maidens, of whom the whole number were by this time assembled.