When she had changed horses, she felt a hunger after the thirst which she had quenched a number of times while crossing the rivers; she began therefore to eat the seeds which she had found in the bag at Azya’s saddle-bow. They seemed to her very good, though a little bitter; she ate, thanking God for the unlooked-for refreshment.
But she ate sparingly, so that they might last to Hreptyoff. Soon sleep began to close her eyelids with irresistible power; and when the movement of the horse ceased to give warmth, a sharp cold pierced her. Her feet were perfectly stiff; she felt also an immeasurable weariness in her whole body, especially in her back and shoulders, strained with struggling against Azya. A great weakness seized her, and her eyes closed.
But after a while she opened them with effort. “No! In the daytime, in time of journeying, I will sleep,” thought she; “but if I sleep now I shall freeze.”
But her thoughts grew more confused, or came helter-skelter, presenting disordered images,—in which the forest, flight and pursuit, Azya, the little knight, Eva, and the last event were mingled together half in a dream, half in clear vision. All this was rushing on somewhere as waves rush driven by the wind; and she, Basia, runs with them, without fear, without joy, as if she were travelling by contract. Azya, as it were, was pursuing her, but at the same time was talking to her, and anxious about the horse; Pan Zagloba was angry because supper would get cold; Michael was showing the road; and Eva was coming behind in the sleigh, eating dates.
Then those persons became more and more effaced, as if a foggy curtain or darkness had begun to conceal them, and they vanished by degrees; there remained only a certain strange darkness, which, though the eye did not pierce it, seemed still to be empty, and to extend an immeasurable distance. This darkness penetrated every place, penetrated Basia’s head, and quenched in it all visions, all thoughts, as a blast of wind quenches torches at night in the open air.
Basia fell asleep; but fortunately for her, before the cold could stiffen the blood in her veins, an unusual noise roused her. The horses started on a sudden; evidently something uncommon was happening in the forest.
Basia, regaining consciousness in one moment, grasped Azya’s musket, and bending on the horse, with collected attention and distended nostrils, began to listen. Hers was a nature of such kind that every peril roused wariness at the first twinkle of an eye, daring and readiness for defence.
The noise which roused her was the grunting of wild pigs. Whether beasts were stealing up to the young pigs, or the old boars were going to fight, it is enough that the whole forest resounded immediately. That uproar took place beyond doubt at a distance; but in the stillness of night, and the general drowsiness, it seemed so near that Basia heard not only grunting and squeals, but the loud whistle of nostrils breathing heavily. Suddenly a breaking and tramp, the crash of broken twigs, and a whole herd, though invisible to Basia, rushed past in the neighborhood, and sank in the depth of the forest.
But in that incorrigible Basia, notwithstanding her terrible position, the feeling of a hunter was roused in a twinkle, and she was sorry that she had not seen the herd rushing by.
“One would like to see a little,” said she, in her mind; “but no matter! Riding in this way through forests, surely I shall see something yet.”