In fact, day was breaking. The gloom was decreasing. The sky and earth were becoming gray; the air was growing pale; the tops of the trees and the bushes were becoming covered, as it were, with silver. The farther clumps began to disclose themselves, as if some one were raising a curtain from before them one after another. Meanwhile from the next clump a horseman came out suddenly.
“From Pan Motovidlo?” asked Volodyovski, when the Cossack stopped right before them.
“Yes, your grace.”
“What is to be heard?”
“They crossed Sirotski Brod, turned toward the bellowing of the bullocks, and went in the direction of Kalusik. They took the cattle, and are at Yurgove Polye.”
“And where is Pan Motovidlo?”
“He has stopped near the hill, and Pan Mellehovich neat Kalusik. Where the other squadrons are I know not.”
“Well,” said Volodyovski, “I know. Hurry to Pan Motovidlo and carry the command to close in, and dispose men singly as far as halfway from Pan Mellehovich. Hurry!”
The Cossack bent in the saddle and shot forward, so that the flanks of his horse quivered at once, and soon he was out of sight. They rode on still more quietly, still more cautiously. Meanwhile it had become clear day. The haze which had risen from the earth about dawn fell away altogether, and on the eastern side of the sky appeared a long streak, bright and rosy, the rosiness and light of which began to color the air on high land, the edges of distant ravines, and the hill-tops. Then there came to the ears of the horsemen a mingled croaking from the direction of the Dniester; and high in the air before them appeared, flying eastward, an immense flock of ravens. Single birds separated every moment from the others, and instead of flying forward directly began to describe circles, as kites and falcons do when seeking for prey. Pan Zagloba raised his sabre, pointing the tip of it to the ravens, and said to Basia,—
“Admire the sense of these birds. Only let it come to a battle in any place, straightway they will fly in from every side, as if some one had shaken them from a bag. But let the same army march alone, or go out to meet friends, the birds will not come; thus are these creatures able to divine the intentions of men, though no one assists them. The wisdom of nostrils is not sufficient in this case, and so we have reason to wonder.”