For the Right

by Karl Emil Franzos

Thus the district governor's position had come to be no bed of roses, when suddenly it seemed as though having reached the worst, matters would mend. It had been observed that Taras's 'judgments' grew fewer, and during the first fortnight in August not a single act of his was heard of at Colomea. It was as though the 'avenger' and his band had suddenly disappeared from the earth. This silence was as mysterious as his terrible doings had been. It could not be any fear of punishment which bound his hands; for if the General now kept his forces together in stockades between Kossowince and Zulawce, this centre of defence, however formidable, could not prevent the bandits from carrying on their work wherever they pleased, any more than the flying columns had been able to stop it. And since no other explanation offered, the Board lent a willing ear to the report which arose, dimly at first, though it soon gained ground, that by far the larger number of the hajdamaks had fallen out with their leader, and that it was inward dissension which had stopped the activity of the band.

CHAPTER XVIII.

[THE APPROACHING DOOM.]

The valley of the "black Czeremosz"!... When the great Emperor Joseph, a hundred years ago, put forth his hand to lay hold of the lonely tracts overlooked by the Carpathians, he sent thither a brave old colonel, George Wetzler by name, a man reared on the sunny banks of the Neckar, to take possession of the district in the monarch's name, and to make suggestions for the improvement of the newly-acquired territory. No easy matter! but the old colonel was a Swabian born--stout of heart and tenacious of purpose--and, moreover, he was honest. So his efforts prospered, and some of the good institutions of his planting are growing still. Never at a loss to make the best of things, he was the very man for his work; but after inspecting this valley the old colonel's patience appears to have been fairly exhausted, as may be gathered from his report to Vienna--a witness of his disappointment to this day. "This valley of the black 'Tshermosh'," he bluntly declared, "must be Old Nick's own presence chamber, and what human creatures are to be found here, are a pack of senseless knaves. There is nothing to be got out of them, nor into them, and this wretched valley will always belong to him of the cloven foot, and never to the Emperor's Majesty."

In one point this judgment proved true, for the people or Zabie and Reza to this day own the supremacy of the State only in a loose and distant sort of way; but in other respects the plain-spoken colonel's picture certainly is overdrawn. It cannot be said that the inhabitants of the valley in question are either more senseless or more knavish than the rest of the Huzuls, though they may be even more shy of the world, more rude of habit--creatures of the forest, both hardy and daring, as men will become whose life is a constant warfare with the sterner forces of nature. But "Old Nick's presence chamber" itself, in sooth, is one of the most glorious, if wildest regions of this mountain chain, "raised by the devil and beautified by the Christ." It would seem as if this valley, which forces its way eastward in a zigzag line between the towering peaks in the southern-most part of Galicia, had indeed been something like an apple of contention for evil or for good. But if it was the devil who made the frowning mountains and strewed the valley with weird-shaped rocks, the imagination may fitly dwell on the redeeming fancy that the gracious Christ has clothed the heights with those splendid firwoods, and called forth flowers and shrubs about the boulders, sweeter and fairer than one would look for at such a height; and if it was the great adversary who made of the Czeremosz a roaring and dangerous torrent, it must have been the Friend of man who formed its banks, so rich and lovely, to hold in the turbulent stream. It fact the traveller, once acquainted with the fanciful legend, will remember it at every turn; and the higher he climbs, up towards the giant-keeper of the Hungarian frontier, the towering Black Mountain (the Czernahora), the more it will appear to him as though a contest between opposing forces had verily taken place; the upper valley certainly is one of the wildest and fairest spots on earth. It narrows perceptibly to the west, ending in a circular hollow, in the centre of which there is a small deep lake, whose waters appear black, partly on account of the dark-coloured strata of rock which form the sides of the basin, and partly because of its lying within the far-stretching shadow of that great frontier peak. At noon only is the silent mirror of the Black Water smiled upon by a passing sunbeam.

On the shore of this lake there is one of the largest settlements within the mountains--cottages, sheepfolds, barns in great number, and closed in with a thorn-hedge; it is the home of Clan Rosenko, numbering about three hundred souls, dwelling here and ruled over by no man save their own patriarch, feared for their valour and duly respected as the wealthiest tribe of the Carpathians. The patriarch of this settlement, in peace or war, is lord paramount within a territory as large as any English county, and wields an influence the strength of which rests in its tradition rather than upon any personal qualities. But never had the clan possessed greater power than when ruled over by the friend and ally of the avenger, the venerable Hilarion, surnamed the Just. There was not a man of Pokutia or the Bukowina who did not bow to him, and none so great nor yet so humble but he would obey his warning and accept his will.

In this man's close proximity Taras had arrived early in August, 1839, encamping with his much-lessened band on an open space within the Dembronia forest, about a mile from the Black Water. Not for fear of the military operations had he withdrawn from the plain and broken up his camp by the Crystal Springs; still less had he done so of his free choice, but yielding to necessity, and hoping thereby to avert worse things. For the report which had reached Colomea was only too well founded. Taras no longer had absolute power over the minds of his men, whose dissatisfaction had grown to bitterness and resentment, breaking out into open rebellion at last. Just that had happened which Nashko, with the clear discernment of his race, had foreseen and foretold, the catastrophe occurring in the last days of July.

"There are too many of them," Taras had said, sorrowfully, to the Jew. "I cannot now, as I used to, impress every individual man with the sacredness of the cause he is serving." But he was mistaken; the band never numbered more than about two hundred, and Taras knew each and all personally; the men, in their turn, being fully aware of his ideas concerning the work they were engaged in. Nor could explanation be sought in the suggestion that even his rigorous care could not suffice for keeping the band pure, and that some ill-disposed fellows, no doubt, were leavening the rest. No; the true reason was this, which Nashko and Jemilian failed not to point out to their beloved leader, saying, "You could never hope for anything better, unless the Almighty had lent you his own avenging angels for the work. These men are but human, and unwilling to stake their lives day after day for no advantage they can see; they look for some reward, some personal gain, for the constant danger they run. You think that the sacred cause of justice should be as dear to them as it is to you; perhaps it should, but for a fact it is not. And if you expect of these men to understand your way of thinking, you should, in your turn, try to enter into their views, less elevated though they be."

But, in truth, neither party could comprehend the other; and with a great number of the men the good-will even was wanting. Their wonderful success, and the fame attending it, had intoxicated them at first; but the novelty wore off, and they began to resent their hetman's folly which forbade plundering and expected them to do the work merely for the benefit of others. It was unheard-of severity, and most unjust, they considered. Among the Huzuls, too, a spirit of discontent was abroad. These wild, lawless men had joined the avenger because they hated the authorities, together with the Polish landlords and the thriving inhabitants of the plains, feeling attracted, moreover, by the prospect of plenty of fighting. It was not reward or booty they craved; but, unused to obedience or self-restraint of any kind, they writhed under the consciousness of being mere instruments of another man's will. They wished to have a voice in the matter before being ordered to this or that work, and did not see by what right they should be interfered with if at any time they preferred to please themselves after their own fashion. But there was yet another and an equally-numerous set of discontented ones, whose spokesman was the whilom choir leader, Sophron Hlinkowski--men of honest and respectable antecedents, who had gathered to Taras's standard either for pure love of his cause, or had been driven to it by cruel oppression.

But the scenes of bloodshed almost daily enacted, and in which they must take their part, filled them with horror and disgust. They trembled at the thought of what punishment they incurred at the hands, even, of earthly law, and they feared the judgment of God. Hitherto, though with a sore conscience, they had obeyed every behest of their leader, whom at first they so fondly adored; but their helpless regret, ending in despair, looked upon Taras now in the light of a cut-throat who forced them on to every fresh deed of iniquity. That his own soul suffered and bled more than theirs they never suspected; for the iron-willed man, worn and wan though he looked, never once quailed before his terrible purpose. They had come to look upon him as the destroyer, not only of their earthly, but even of their eternal hopes, and they were the first of his followers to unburden their minds.