"This minute! this minute!" cried Volodyovski. "Three of them are riding in advance; that is what I wanted."
In fact three horsemen appeared on the clear road, mounted evidently on the best horses,--"wolf-hunters," so called in the Ukraine, for they came up with wolves in the chase,--and two or three hundred yards behind them a few hundred others, and still farther a whole dense throng of the horde.
When the first three came in front of the ambush two shots were discharged; then Volodyovski sprang like a panther into the middle of the road, and before Zagloba had time to think what was done the third Tartar was on the ground.
"Forward!" shouted the little knight.
Zagloba did not let the order be repeated, and they rushed over the road like a pair of wolves hunted by a pack of angry dogs. That moment the other Tartars hastened to the corpses, and seeing that those hunted wolves could bite to death they curbed their horses a little, waiting for their comrades.
"As you see, I knew that I should stop them," said Volodyovski.
But although the fugitives gained a few hundred steps, the interruption in the chase did not last long. Only the Tartars pressed on in a larger crowd, not pushing forward singly.
The horses of the fugitives were wearied by the long road, and their speed slackened, especially that of Zagloba's horse, which bearing such a considerable burden stumbled once and twice. What there was left of the old man's hair stood on end at the thought that he should fall.
"Pan Michael, dearest Pan Michael, do not abandon me!" cried he, in despair.
"Oh, be of good heart!" answered the little knight.