Then through the heavy fringed bed-curtain came to her the flowing sound of a distant lute, and at the same time a voice began to accompany with the familiar song,--
"Oh, this loving
Is worse than sickness!
Sickness I can live through,
And grow well again;
But my faithful loving
I cannot part with while I live."
The princess raised herself, and the longer she listened the wider stared her eyes from terror. At last she screamed and fell as if dead on the cushions. She recognized the voice of Bogun.
Her scream passed evidently through the walls of the chamber; for after a while the heavy curtain rustled, and the chief himself appeared on the threshold.
Kurtsevichovna covered her eyes with her hands, and her whitened and quivering lips repeated, as if in a fever: "Jesus, Mary! Jesus, Mary!"
And yet the sight which so terrified her would have rejoiced the eyes of more maidens than one, for there was a blaze from the apparel and the countenance of the young hero. The diamond buttons of his uniform glittered like stars in heaven, his dagger and sabre were covered with precious stones, his coat of silver cloth and his scarlet kontush doubled the beauty of his brunette face; and he stood before her, lithe, dark-browed, magnificent,--the beauty of all the Ukraine heroes. But his eyes were in mist, like stars curtained by haze, and he looked on her with obedience; and seeing that fear did not leave her face, he began to speak in a low, sad voice,--
"Have no fear, Princess!"
"Where am I? where am I?" asked she, looking at him through her fingers.
"In a safe place, far from war. Fear not, my dear soul! I brought you here from Bar, so that no harm might come to you from man or war. The Cossacks spared no one in Bar; you alone came out alive."
"What are you doing here? Why do you pursue me?"