"What a mercy," cried the horseman, "to fall in with a living creature at last! How long shall I have to struggle on, tell me, before reaching the Dembronia Forest?"
"What on earth do you want there?" asked Taras, surprised. "You would find only wolves to make merry at your bidding, if that is it--why, the forest is utterly uninhabited!"
"Then I am better informed than you," retorted the fiddler; "the avenger and his band are in the forest, if no one else is."
"Do you want him?"
"To be sure, and badly! The poor wretch of a girl, I believe, would claw my eyes out if I did not fetch him as I promised."
"What girl? But you may save yourself farther trouble--I am the avenger."
"You!" cried the man, crossing himself quickly. But coming a little closer, he peered with a half-fearful curiosity into the hetman's sorrowful face. "You might be he, certainly," he muttered; "you look exactly as they told me, and poor Kasia said I could not possibly mistake the terrible gloom on your face. I suppose I had better believe you, and you must come with me, else that wretched girl will die of her remorse."
"What girl? what is it? Where am I wanted? Do speak plainly!"
"At the inn at Zabie. She'd have come to you instead of asking you to come to her--I mean Kasia, my sister's daughter--she says it is killing her, and she must not die without telling you."
"Telling me what? Has she any complaints to make against any wrong-doer?"