"As I told you, the peasants are maddened, and would kill any passing stranger as they would a wild beast. They would regard him as a spy of some band like ours, or of a company of disbanded soldiers, sent forward to discover which houses and villages are best worth plundering. In your case, you have other dangers to fear. You may be sure that news has been sent from Warsaw to all the different governors, with orders for your arrest for killing Ben Soloman, and these orders will be transmitted to every town and village. Your hair and eyes would at once betray you as strangers, and your ignorance of the language would be fatal to you. If, therefore, you escaped being killed as a robber by the peasants, you would run the risk of arrest at the first town or village you entered.
"Translate that to him, Stanislas. He is learning our language fast, but he cannot understand all that."
"That is just what we were talking about," Charlie said, when Stanislas had repeated the captain's speech, "and the danger seems too great to be risked. Think you, that when we get farther to the east, we shall be able to make our way more easily up into Livonia?"
"Much more easily, because the forest is more extensive there; but not until the winter is over. The cold will be terrible, and it would be death to sleep without shelter. Besides, the forests are infested with wolves, who roam about in packs, and would scent and follow and devour you. But when spring comes, you can turn your faces to the north, and leave us if you think fit, and I promise you that no hindrance shall be thrown in your way. I only ask you not to risk your lives by trying now to pass through Poland alone."
"I think you are right, Ladislas, and I promise you that we will not attempt to leave you during our journey east. As you say, it would be impossible for us to travel after winter had once set in. It is now the end of September."
"And it will be November before we reach our destination. We shall not travel fast. We have no motive for doing so. We have to live by the way, and to gather a little money to help us through the winter. We may shoot a bear or an elk sometimes, a few deer, and hares, but we shall want two or three sacks of flour, and some spirits. For these we must either get money, or take the goods. The first is the best, for we have no means of dragging heavy weights with us, and it would not do to infuriate the peasants by plundering any of them within twenty miles of the place where we mean to winter. That would set them all against us."
"I tell you frankly, Ladislas, that we shall not be willing to aid in any acts of robbery. Of course, when one is with an army one has to plunder on a large scale, and it has often gone terribly against the grain, when I have had to join parties sent out to forage. But it has to be done. I would rather not join men in taking food, yet I understand that it may be necessary. But as to taking money, I will have nothing to do with it. At the same time, I understand that we cannot share your food, and be with you, without doing something. Stanislas has brought me a little money from Warsaw, and I shall be ready to pay into the common treasury a sum sufficient to pay for our share of the food. As to money taken, we shall not expect any share of it. If you are attacked, we shall of course fight, and shall be ready to do our full share in all work. So, at any rate, you will not be losers by taking us with you."
"That is fair enough," the captain said, when Stanislas had translated what Charlie said, suppressing, however, his remarks about foraging with the army, as the brigands were ignorant that Charlie and he had any connection with the Swedes, or that he was not, as he had given out, a young Englishman come out to set up as a trader.
The band now journeyed slowly on, keeping near the north bank of the Dnieper. They went by twos and threes, uniting sometimes and entering a village or surrounding a farmhouse at night, and taking what they wanted. The people were, however, terribly poor, and they were able to obtain but little beyond scanty supplies of flour, and occasionally a few gold or silver trinkets. Many other bands of plunderers had passed along, in the course of the summer, and the robbers themselves were often moved to pity by the misery that they everywhere met with.
When in small parties they were obliged to avoid entering any villages, for once or twice furious attacks were made upon those who did so, the women joining the men in arming themselves with any weapon that came to hand, and in falling upon the strangers.