"Well, tell her without witnesses, then you can give her the lie, if need be. For the rest do as you please--I am safe enough here."
The conversation was interrupted! the governor inviting his guests to move to the dining-room. "I have thought," he said, addressing the pair, "it might be most agreeable for each of you if we put you together."
Kapronski bowed more humbly than ever, Hajek smiling blandly. He had made up his mind to let everybody feel mortified, but not himself--he was not going to be annoyed, not he! And he carried out his resolution; easier for him, no doubt, than for a man of higher mettle.
He drove home in the best of humours, and how he whiled away the rest of his time, attuning his mind for the events of the evening, we have had a glimpse of already. We need not describe the solemnities at the villa, touching as they were, for we know the programme, which was minutely followed. There were not many to witness the scene; but the old dame had set her heart on the play-acting, and the mandatar, to please her, fell in with her fancy. The manner of his kneeling to Wanda was quite classical, and supper was consumed amid charming hilarity, not forgetting some wonderful verses with which Thaddy astonished the company.
But when the guests had departed, a final and real surprise was in store for the happy bridegroom. He was cooling his brow at the open window, when suddenly he perceived his coachman, Jasko, in conversation with a horseman a little way up the road. He could see that the stranger wore the Huzul garb. The night was dark, and a faint gleam only from the lighted house fell on the road, but Hajek nevertheless recognised the horseman. "Good heavens!" he shrieked, "stop him! Seize him!"
Bogdan and the countess rushed up terrified; but the stranger also had heard the alarm, and spurring his horse, he dashed away and was lost to sight.
"My coachman! I entreat you send for my coachman!" cried Hajek, beside himself. Jasko was called in. "That was Wassilj Soklewicz you were talking with just now?" said the mandatar, quaking.
"Yes, sir," replied the man, wonderingly.
"Don't you know he is one of the outlaws--one of Taras's band?"
"Mercy on us!" cried the coachman, aghast. "He assured me he had taken service with the mandatar at Prinkowce, and I believed him, telling him all about ourselves on Tuesday and Thursday and this evening. I told him: 'We need not fear Taras now, for we are going to marry a rich lady, and shall live at Drinkowce. In the meantime, we are quite safe at Colomea.' At which he laughed, telling me there was no saying what might happen between now and the wedding; indeed soon----"