"Yes, indeed, and we will," was the unanimous retort. "It is you and Schymko that disgrace the village. No honest man will go to sleep to-night."
And therewith the consultation ended.
Not long after, Halko, the servant lad of Anusia's farm, rushed into his mistress's presence. "Is it true"--he cried, "it is being spoken of all over the village--that Taras, with a hundred men, will attack the manor to-night? The people mean to watch for it, but will not join him for fear of the law. Is it true?"
Anusia stood trembling violently, a burning glow and a death-like pallor succeeding one another rapidly in her face.
"How should I know?" she said presently, with a stony look. "I and my family belong to the village, and have nothing to do with the 'avenger.' And just because he has been the master of this house there is henceforth no communion between him and us! Let the others watch for him; we shall retire as usual. Let no one dare to disregard my orders!"
CHAPTER XII.
[FLOURISHING LIKE A BAY-TREE.]
"While the inhabitants of Zulawce thus excitedly waited for the events of the coming night, their busy imagination beguiling the slow hours with various visions of the hapless mandatar, beholding him either hanged, or shot, or burnt alive, this gentleman himself was similarly engaged. That is to say, he also was waiting excitedly for the night, endeavouring to shorten the agony of delay by picturing to himself the approaching crisis. But the images he had in view were of a vastly different nature. For he was nowise hiding in an iron closet at Zulawce, which, even if he had desired it, would have been impossible, for the simple reason that there was no such stronghold; but he was at that moment comfortably established in the snug little smoking-room of his chambers at Colomea--his refuge, both for his pleasures and, perchance now, in trouble. He had just returned from a dinner which the district governor at this season was in the habit of giving to the officials of the place; and between the blue circles ascending from his expensive cheroot he now beheld visions--imagining the impending scenes at an evening party to which the richest man of the neighbourhood, Herr Bogdan von Antoniewicz, an Armenian, had invited a small but select company. These scenes presumably would be of a pleasant nature, for Mr. Hajek kept smiling--nay, he even skipped about his room the while he puffed his fragrant cloudlets with a sort of irrepressible delight. But if he was expecting some happy event it appeared to be a critical one also, to judge from the nervous action with which he kept pulling out his watch, and there was even an occasional shadow of seriousness gliding over his finely-cut but dissipated features. But this was like a noonday cloud, only darkening for a moment the brilliant sky, and the mandatar returned to his smiles.
"Pshaw," he said, stopping before his looking-glass and twirling his moustache, "as if I had not made sure of her virtues myself!... three of them! And for the rest of it----" he paused, bowing profoundly to his image in the glass; "for the rest of it, Mr. Hajek, please to bear in mind your history and your present dilemma. Ha! ha!" He appeared immensely tickled with this pretence at honesty; it seemed quite a joke to ruminate over a bit of self-knowledge, and it kept him in the best of humour till the clock struck eight, when he rang for his valet, and, having completed his toilet, he drove to the villa of the Armenian.
It was early for an evening party of distinction, and Mr. Hajek, who had lived in Paris, and therefore was looked upon as an oracle of good style by all who pretended to be fashionable at Colomea, would under ordinary circumstances never have sinned so grievously against the laws he himself had established. But in the present case it was incumbent on him to be the first of the guests. For these were not ordinary circumstances, but, on the contrary, an event which as a rule comes but once in life; he was driving to the villa in order to celebrate his betrothal with the widowed Countess Wanda Koninski, the Armenian's only daughter. It was indeed an event! and the several actors in the little comedy had even drawn up a programme for the most suitable expression of their feelings.