Basia raised herself in a moment, and, springing on her horse, shot off like a whirlwind in the direction opposite the Dnieper, toward the broad steppes.
The curtain of fog closed behind her. The horse, dropping his ears, rushed on at random among the rocks, clefts, ravines, and breaches. Any moment he might run into some cleft, any moment he might crush himself and his rider against a rocky corner; but Basia looked at nothing; for her the most terrible danger was Azya and the Tartars. A wonderful thing it was, that now, when she had freed herself from the hands of the robber, and when he was lying apparently dead among the rocks, dread mastered all her feelings. Lying with her face to the mane of the horse, shooting on in the fog, like a deer chased by wolves, she began to fear Azya more than when she was in his arms; and she felt terror and weakness and that which a helpless child feels, which, wandering where it wished, has gone astray, and is alone and deserted. Certain weeping voices rose in her heart, and began, with groaning, with timidity, with complaint, and with pity, to call for protection: “Michael, save me! Michael, save me!”
The horse rushed on and on; led by a wonderful instinct, he sprang over breaches, avoided with quick movement prominent cliff corners, until at last the stony ground ceased to sound under his feet; evidently he had come to one of those open “meadows” which stretched here and there among the ravines.
Sweat covered the horse, his nostrils were rattling loudly, but he ran and ran.
“Whither can I go?” thought Basia. And that moment she answered herself: “To Hreptyoff.”
But new alarm pressed her heart at thought of that long road lying through terrible wildernesses. Quickly too she remembered that Azya had left detachments of his men in Mohiloff and Yampol. Doubtless these were all in the conspiracy; all served Azya, and would seize her surely, and take her to Rashkoff; she ought, therefore, to ride far into the steppe, and only then turn northward, thus avoiding the settlements on the Dniester.
She ought to do this all the more for the reason that if men were sent to pursue her, beyond doubt they would go near the river; and meanwhile it might be possible to meet some of the Polish commands in the wide steppes, on their way to the fortresses.
The speed of the horse decreased gradually. Basia, being an experienced rider, understood at once that it was necessary to give him time to recover breath, otherwise he would fall; she felt also that without a horse in those deserts she was lost.
She restrained, therefore, his speed, and went some time at a walk. The fog was growing thin, but a cloud of hot steam rose from the poor beast.
Basia began to pray.