So sudden was his appearance that those without fell back a step. The "fiend" in person seemed utterly different from the name he bore--a well-grown, still youthful man, in the black robe of a priest, with a face both grave and handsome, and singularly dignified. The pallor of his countenance only showed his inward disturbance, his features wearing an expression of proudest self-confidence, and his eyes flashed imperiously.
"What is this?" he demanded. "Who are you?"
"I am Taras, the avenger," replied the latter, facing him. "Your time of reckoning has come! Your stronghold could not protect you; and neither the bold front of courage nor any cowardly whimpering will avail you now."
"Do I look like one given to whimpering?" said Sanecki, drawing himself up. "I am not a coward, though I endeavoured to hide from you. What else is there left for a peaceful priest when a horde of murderers enter his dwelling at night and he hears the tumult of bloodshed without? ... Your name and your purpose, Taras, are known to me, but I should scarcely have thought that you could think it needful to visit me. My conscience accuses me of nothing."
"Hold your lying tongue, you blackest of fiends," cried Jacek, beside himself, and he would have fallen upon the priest had not Taras held him back, continuing calmly: "Then you absolutely deny the charge of having committed the most inhuman wrongs against the villagers, robbing them of their property, and of the peace of their souls as well?"
"It is they who speak falsely in accusing me. I have taken from them what belongs to the Church and to me by right--not a whit beyond. In my case, Taras, you cannot be an avenger, but only a murderer, if your conscience will let you. But I think better of you, and I demand that you shall confront me with my accusers, with respectable, trustworthy men, not with a good-for-nothing like this Jacek, and I shall know how to answer them."
There appeared to be a lull in the fighting without--the firing had ceased, and the general tumult was hushed. But within the manor at that moment bloodshed was imminent. Jacek, quite unable to master his fury, had snatched a pistol from his belt, and was pointing it at the priest.
"Stop, Jacek," commanded Taras, wresting the weapon from him. "And you, priest, utter no slander!... Say on Jacek in what has this man offended against you and yours. Say it with the fewest words, and speak the truth."
The peasant strove to conquer his feelings. "My father," he began, speaking with difficulty, "was obliged last year to remain on the upland pasture late into the spring. It was an unavoidable necessity, for the live stock was all we possessed. When he returned, this fiend of a man fined him a hundred florins, because he had been absent from confession and from the sacrament at Easter. It was our ruin, and brought us to beggary."
A voice was heard through the open window. "Hetman! hetman!" was the cry.