“But why are you so young, Pan Knight?”
“What is that to you?”
“And are you travelling alone?” asked the peasant, advancing a step.
“Troops are following me.”
He halted, looked over the immense plain, and answered,—
“Not true. There is no one.”
He advanced two steps; his crooked eyes gave out a sullen gleam, and arranging his mouth he began to imitate the call of a quail, evidently wishing to summon some one in that way.
All this seemed to Basia very hostile, and she aimed a pistol at his breast without hesitation,—
“Silence, or thou’lt die!”
The man stopped, and, what is more, threw himself flat on the ground. The idiot did the same, but began to howl like a wolf from terror; perhaps he had lost his mind on a time from the same feeling, for now his howling recalled the most ghastly terror.