For the Right

by Karl Emil Franzos

But Father Leo turned away in silence, leaving the inn with Maxym Bobra and one or two other men.

The village, which but lately had been the scene of so wild an uproar, lay still as death; a number of soldiers had settled round a watch fire outside the inn, a similar guard being stationed in front of the manor house. The lurid flames rising from these two spots were the only lights visible. The sentries patrolling the village with cocked pistols found no cause of alarm. Neither did good Father Leo, for no one seemed to require his aid except a woman lying terror-stricken at her own cottage door.

He went home, poor Fruzia receiving him with a cry of horror at the sight of his pale, blood-stained countenance. But she, whom lesser troubles would readily overpower, now recovered herself, courageously. "I will not murmur," the faithful wife was saying, with trembling lips, hastening to dress his wound, "you have but done your duty." Nor did she raise the slightest objection on his declaring he would sit up through the night. "I must indeed," he added, "I sadly fear we shell hear of farther trouble; some wounded or dying man may send for me."

And so it proved. In the small hours of the morning a messenger arrived begging him to take the sacrament to the smithy, since Marko had not many minutes to live. He made all possible speed, but death was before him; the towering giant who but a few hours before had spoken so manfully, would never lift his chirping voice again. He had been foremost among those who opposed the soldiers, a sabre-cut had disabled him, and as he endeavoured to drag himself home after the fray a bullet caught him in the back, inflicting his death-wound. He reached the smithy, but only to die. Father Leo offered what consolation he could to the bereaved widow, who in tearless grief held fast the dead man's hand. "Peace!" she replied, gloomily: "there is but one comfort left; I shall know how to use his gun, and the hour of reckoning will come."

Such, indeed, was the frame of mind of most of the people when the good pope in the early morning went his round of the cottages. Few of the villagers had been wounded or hurt, but one and all were burning with resentment. And the strange quiet, blending with their wrath, appeared to him more alarming than the turbulent anger he was accustomed to. "We have suffered wrong," they said, "and we shall pay it back. We cannot do so without a leader, but we may trust Taras. If we waited for him in vain last night, it was no doubt because the mandatar evidently is not at the house--he would have shown his cowardly face under the protection of the military if he were hiding in the place! But no matter, Taras will now be coming for our sakes."

On the afternoon of Easter Monday a body of infantry relieved the hussars, the officer in command proving himself both judicious and kind. On learning from the pope how matters stood, he readily promised to spare the villagers as much as possible; and since the manor house, the protection of which was the main object, offered plenty of room, he would have the men quartered there--all but a few, at least, he added, whom, according to special instructions, he would have to billet on Taras's farm. "I am sorry," he said, "to make acquaintance of this man's family in so unpleasant a way, for it went to one's heart to hear him speak of them."

"Do you know Taras?" inquired Father Leo, wonderingly.

"Yes. I am Captain Stanczuk, and acted as interpreter when he was admitted to the Emperor's presence at Vienna."

The peasants looked on with a savage gloom as the "Whitecoats" made themselves at home in the village, their anger blazing forth when they learned that the officer actually was the son of a Podolian pope. Anusia received her uninvited guests after a similar fashion, treating the officer, first to a withering look, and then to her utmost contempt. The captain had come in person, hoping to smooth matters, but the woman seemed beyond conciliation.

Yet she trembled visibly when Father Leo whispered to her that her visitor was the same captain who had assisted Taras at Vienna, and a deep flush overspread her face.