"May God guard us!" replied Jendzian. "Oh, my master, begin your exorcisms, for I am awfully afraid."
"Exorcisms are folly. Let us bless the river and the secret places,--that will help more."
Volodyovski was the calmest of all, but he kept silent, examining however his pistols carefully, and added new powder; then he felt to see if his sabre would come out of the scabbard easily.
"I have a consecrated bullet too in this pistol here," said Jendzian. "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost! Let us move on!"
"Move on! move on!" said Volodyovski.
After a time they found themselves on the bank of the little river, and turned their horses in the direction of its course. Here Volodyovski stopped them, and said,--
"Let Jendzian take the baton, for the witch knows him, and let him be the first to talk with her, so that she may not get frightened at us and run off with the princess into some hiding-place."
"I will not go first, no matter what you do," said Jendzian.
"Then go last, you drone!"
Having said this, Volodyovski went first, after him Zagloba, and in the rear with the pack-horses clattered Jendzian, looking around with apprehension on every side. The hoofs of the horses rattled over the stones, around about reigned the dull silence of the desert; but grasshoppers and crickets hidden in the cliff chirped, for it was a sultry day, though the sun had passed the meridian considerably. Night had come at last to the eminence, rounded like an upturned shield, on which rocks fallen apart and burnt from the sun presented forms like ruins, tumble-down houses, and church-steeples; you might have thought it a castle or a place stormed by an enemy.