"If I might be allowed to suggest," said Wroblewski, the secretary, looking wicked, "surely we could find no better delegates than our friend Kapronski, who sooner or later will have to show his face here, and the amiable hero of all this business himself, Mr. Wenceslas Hajek, who, I am told, intends this very week to enter the blessed estate of matrimony."
"None of your chaff," broke in the governor, "we are not gathered here for joking; moreover, I want to be off to inform the poor woman of her liberty. I'll see her myself! So, to come to business, suppose we appoint Dr. Starkowski, who not only knows Taras, but always had a good word for him. And I should say he could not have a better companion than the parish-priest of Zulawce, Father Leo Woronczuk. Let these two go and come to an understanding with Taras."
The Board unanimously agreed to this proposal, and the governor was soon free to repair to the city gaol, his heart brimming with the good news for Anusia.
CHAPTER XIX.
[FOR THE RIGHT--IN THE WRONG.]
It was a lovely morning, fair and still, with the glow of autumn upon the mountains. More golden seemed the light and bluer the heavens than summer had known them. Though but early as yet in September, the high peaks of the Czernahora were white with the first sparkling snow; but the air was mellow in the valley, and there being no foliage which by its turning colour might have told of the waning year, but only firs and pines of sombre green, there was nothing to remind one of nature's gentle decay, save the peculiar clearness of the atmosphere, and at times a whirring sound high overhead--the first flights of birds going South. A deep silence lay brooding over the wild splendour of the valley; not a sign of life anywhere. The Czeremosz even, ever restless and rushing as described in song, had grown calm with the hot days of summer, and was flowing quite steadily along.
A strange shrill call suddenly rent the air. Any one who had never heard it would naturally have looked up to see whether a hawk or falcon might be discerned in the shining blue; but the sound was followed by others, falling on the ear more gently, now at intervals, now in succession, a monotonous mournful melody, rising and sinking, and ebbing away through the stilly landscape. And even the unaccustomed listener would have found out by this time that it was some shepherd's pipe sending its voice through the valley. But ere long, the sorrowful strain was broken into by that same shrill call, only it now came from a different direction, another pipe silencing the first one, as it were, and carrying on its dolorous song; which again in its turn was taken up by another, more distant, starting with that peculiar note, and continuing the strain. Thus the plaintive melody went sobbing along from pasture to pasture, and those that heard it crossed themselves, murmuring a prayer, and then hastened to their homestead to put on suitable attire, that they might assist in burying the dead. For such is the way within the mountains: if a man dies in any of the valleys the event is made known by a blast of the horn--the death-horn they call it--and its voice is hollow and dismal, as befits the first outburst of mourning; and later on the subdued dirge of the shepherd's pipe invites the neighbours to render the last kindly tribute to him who is gone.
It was from the largest settlement that the call had come, and the far-off listeners had been seized with apprehension, lest the death-horn should announce the passing away of the patriarch of the valley, Hilarion the Just; but by the time the pipes were heard it was known that it was for the burial of a stranger only, who in a sheltering homestead of Clan Rosenko had breathed his last. Old Jemilian was gone.
For more than a week he had lain wrestling with death, fighting his last battle bravely, with manly courage and resignation. Hilarion, not merely the ruler and guide of his people, but their adviser in sickness as well, had vainly endeavoured to succour the sinking life with healing herbs, and to tend the wound with practised skill. In vain, too, had been the almost passionate care of the maiden Tatiana, who watched by the sick man day and night. The poor girl, feeling shy at first, and disconsolate among strangers, had been glad of the opportunity of showing her gratitude to the hetman by soothing the sick-bed of his servant and friend.
Jemilian himself was almost impatient of so much solicitude. "I know that I am going to die," he kept repeating; "and it is well. One duty only I have yet to perform, and the good God will give me the needful strength before I go."