“I should like to speak first with your grace,” said Azya, with a strange voice.
“Then why not speak at once?”
“I am waiting for a messenger from Rashkoff; I thought to find him in Yampol. I expect him every moment.”
“But what,” said Basia, “has the messenger to do with our conversation?”
“I think that he is coming now,” said the Tartar, avoiding an answer. And he galloped forward, but returned after a while. “No; that is not he.”
In his whole posture, in his speech, in his look, in his voice, there was something so excited and feverish that unquietude was communicated to Basia; still the least suspicion had not risen in her head yet. Azya’s unrest could be explained perfectly by the nearness of Rashkoff and of Eva’s terrible father; still, something oppressed Basia, as if her own fate were in question. Approaching the sleigh, she rode near Eva for a number of hours, speaking with her of Rashkoff, of old Pan Novoveski, of Pan Adam, of Zosia Boski, finally of the region about them, which was becoming a wilder and more terrible wilderness. It was, in truth, a wilderness immediately beyond Hreptyoff; but there at least a column of smoke rose from time to time on the horizon, indicating some habitation. Here there were no traces of man; and if Basia had not known that she was going to Rashkoff, where people were living, and a Polish garrison was stationed, she might have thought that they were taking her somewhere into an unknown desert, into strange lands at the end of the world.
Looking around at the country, she restrained her horse involuntarily, and was soon left in the rear of the sleighs and horsemen. Azya joined her after a while; and since he knew the region well, he began to show her various places, mentioning their names.
This did not last very long, however, for the earth began to be smoky; evidently the winter had not such power in that southern region as in woody Hreptyoff. Snow was lying somewhat, it is true, in the valleys, on the cliffs, on the edges of the rocks, and also on the hillsides turned northward; but in general the earth was not covered, and looked dark with groves, or gleamed with damp withered grass. From that grass rose a light whitish fog, which, extending near the earth, formed in the distance the counterfeit of great waters, filling the valleys and spreading widely over the plains; then that fog rose higher and higher, till at last it hid the sunshine, and turned a clear day into a foggy and gloomy one.
“There will be rain to-morrow,” said Azya.
“If not to-day. How far is it to Rashkoff?”