They laid out a square, built huts, and waited. At the edges of the wood sentries were posted; some of these looked day and night toward Budjyak, others toward the Pruth in the direction of Falezi. Pan Adam knew that he would divine the approach of the Sultan’s armies by certain signs; besides, he sent out small detachments, led by himself most frequently. The weather favored excellently the halt in that dry region. The days were warm, but it was easy to avoid heat in the shade of the thicket; the nights were clear, calm, moonlight, and then the groves were quivering from the singing of nightingales. During such nights Pan Adam suffered most, for he could not sleep; he was thinking of his former happiness, and pondering on the present days of disaster. He lived only in the thought that when his heart was sated with vengeance he would be happier and calmer. Meanwhile the time was approaching in which he was to accomplish that vengeance or perish.
Week followed week spent in finding food in wild places, and in watching. During that time they studied all the trails, ravines, meadows, rivers, and streams, gathered in again a number of herds, cut down some small bands of nomads, and watched continually in that thicket, like a wild beast waiting for prey. At last the expected moment came.
A certain morning they saw flocks of birds covering the earth and the sky. Bustards, ptarmigans, blue-legged quails, hurried through the grass to the thicket; through the sky flew ravens, crows, and even water-birds, evidently frightened on the banks of the Danube or the swamps of the Dobrudja. At sight of this the dragoons looked at one another; and the phrase, “They are coming! they are coming!” flew from mouth to mouth. Faces grew animated at once, mustaches began to quiver, eyes to gleam, but in that animation there was not the slightest alarm. Those were all men for whom life had passed in “methods;” they only felt what a hunting dog feels when he sniffs game. Fires were quenched in a moment, so that smoke might not betray the presence of people in the thicket; the horses were saddled; and the whole detachment stood ready for action.
It was necessary so to measure time as to fall on the enemy during a halt. Pan Adam understood well that the Sultan’s troops would not march in dense masses, especially in their own country, where danger was altogether unlikely. He knew, too, that it was the custom of vanguards to march five or ten miles before the main army. He hoped, with good reason, that the Lithuanian Tartars would be first in the vanguard.
For a certain time he hesitated whether to advance to meet them by secret roads, well known to him, or to wait in the woods for their coming. He chose the latter, because it was easier to attack from the woods unexpectedly. Another day passed, then a night, during which not only birds came in swarms, but beasts came in droves to the woods. Next morning the enemy was in sight.
South of the wood stretched a broad though hilly meadow, which was lost in the distant horizon. On that meadow appeared the enemy, and approached the wood rather quickly. The dragoons looked from the trees at that dark mass, which vanished at times, when hidden by hills, and then appeared again in all its extent.
Lusnia, who had uncommonly sharp eyesight, looked some time with effort at those crowds approaching; then he went to Novoveski, and said,—
“Pan Commandant, there are not many men; they are only driving herds out to pasture.”
Pan Adam convinced himself soon that Lusnia was right, and his face shone with gladness.
“That means that their halting-place is five or six miles from this grove,” said he.