Jendzian looked at Zagloba and said: "This is the Devil's Mound; I know it from what Bogun told me. No living thing passes here by night."
"If it does not, it can," answered Zagloba. "Tfu! what a cursed land! But at least we are on the right road."
"The place is not far," said Jendzian.
"Praise be to God!" answered Zagloba; and his mind was turned to the princess.
He had wonderful thoughts, and seeing those wild banks of the Valadinka, that desert and silent wilderness, he scarcely believed that the princess could be so near,--she for whose sake he had passed through so many adventures and dangers, and loved so that when the news of her death came he knew not what to do with his life and his old age. But on the other hand a man becomes intimate, even with misfortune. Zagloba, who had grown familiar with the thought that she had been taken away and was far off in Bogun's power, did not dare to say now to himself: "The end of grief and search has come, the hour of success and peace has arrived." Besides other thoughts crowded to his brain: "What will she say when she sees him? Will she not dissolve into tears when like a thunderbolt comes to her that rescue, after such long and painful captivity? God has his wonderful ways," thought Zagloba, "and so succeeds in correcting everything that from this come the triumph of virtue and the shame of injustice. It was God who first gave Jendzian into the hands of Bogun, and then made friends of them. God arranged that War, the stern mother, called away the wild ataman from the fastnesses to which like a wolf he had carried his plunder. God afterward delivered him into the hands of Volodyovski, and again brought him into contact with Jendzian. All is so arranged that now, when Helena may have lost her last hope and when she expects aid from no side, aid is at hand! Oh, cease your weeping, my daughter! Soon will joy come to you without measure! Oh, she will be grateful, clasp her hands, and return thanks!" Then she stood before the eyes of Zagloba as if living, and he was filled with emotion and lost altogether in thinking of what would happen in an hour.
Jendzian pulled him by the sleeve from behind. "My master!"
"Well!" said Zagloba, displeased that the course of his thoughts was interrupted.
"Did you not see a wolf spring across before us?"
"What of that?"
"But was it only a wolf?"