With that a louder noise came in from the square; Zagloba sprang up again in a rage, and rushed out through the doorway.
Head was thrust up to head on the square; but at sight of Zagloba and two other officers the soldiers pushed back into a half-circle.
“Be quiet, you dog souls!” began Zagloba, “or I’ll command—”
But out of the half-circle stepped Zydor Lusnia,—a sergeant of dragoons, a real Mazovian, and one of Pan Michael’s favorite soldiers. This man advanced a couple of steps, straightened himself out like a string, and said with a voice of decision,—
“Your grace, since such a son has injured our lady, as I live, we cannot but move on him and take vengeance; all beg to do this. And if the colonel cannot go, we will go under another command, even to the Crimea itself, to capture that man; and remembering our lady, we will not spare him.”
A stubborn, cold, peasant threat sounded in the voice of the sergeant; other dragoons and attendants in the accompanying squadrons began to grit their teeth, shake their sabres, puff, and murmur. This deep grumbling, like the grumbling of a bear in the night, had in it something simply terrible.
The sergeant stood erect waiting for an answer; behind him whole ranks were waiting, and in them was evident such obstinacy and rage that in presence of it even the ordinary obedience of soldiers disappeared.
Silence continued for a while; all at once some voice in a remoter line called out,—
“The blood of that one is the best medicine for ‘the lady.’”
Zagloba’s anger fell away, for that attachment of the soldiers to Basia touched him; and at that mention of medicine another plan flashed up in his head,—namely, to bring a doctor to Basia. At the first moment in that wild Hreptyoff no one had thought of a doctor; but nevertheless there were many of them in Kamenyets,—among others a certain Greek, a famous man, wealthy, the owner of a number of stone houses, and so learned that he passed everywhere as almost skilled in the black art. But there was a doubt whether he, being wealthy, would be willing to come at any price to such a desert,—he to whom even magnates spoke with respect.