“‘Golden boughs and boughs of silver.’”
Behind me came Martemian—pistol in hand—a grim, purple-scarred man, who had no mercy and no music in him. Between the two, I made my choice. If I could have killed them then—and I would have done it if I could—Martemian would have been the first.
We rode thus—passing, once or twice, a peasant pilgrim travelling slowly and patiently toward the shrine of Saint Sergius, a brown-skinned, lean moujik with a sheepskin caftan, and legs swathed in folds of cloth, and shoes of lime-tree bark; a man whose life was only labour and starvation and prayer. They came many, many leagues, on foot, to pray, and they went back, on foot, praying still. They looked at us with dull eyes, like dumb beasts, and passed with bowed heads. On we went riding swiftly, ever northward; on and on, and night fell and the stars shone overhead.
At last Martemian halted us, and getting me off my horse, coolly bound my ankles and tethered me to a stump. Then they built a fire of fagots, for we were on the edge of a little wood, and Mikhail cooked a meal of fish, and while he was thus engaged, Martemian, aided by the light of the fagots, came nearer to me and, taking a moment when the other’s back was turned, searched me, and I lay still waiting, determined, now, on my course. He found the bag of roubles and hid it quickly in his own breast and was back, sitting on the ground and feigning sleep when Mikhail brought the fish and bread. Liquor they had in plenty, but they offered me only a cup of water, from a stagnant pool beside us, and a piece of bread. Evidently my food was to be only sufficient to keep body and soul together, but I ate it and said nothing; as yet I knew no Russ, and I saw already a way to deal with this matter and watched the two—suspicious enough now of each other—with grim satisfaction. If I could not outwit two clownish rogues, surely I deserved my fate, and yet—all night I lay, tied to a tree as helpless as a log, and heard them snore beside me. And all the while I cursed my fate and thought of the Princess Daria. It was madness, too, to think of her. I had not kept the tryst; did she suspect the truth, or think me a poor craven frightened by her father? I writhed then in my bonds and plotted vengeance on Martemian; the other villain was but a slave and a dupe.
XXXIII: I SOW DISSENSION
IN the morning my two rogues had a very pretty quarrel over the breakfast, and the result was that I only got a morsel of dry black bread, while Martemian devoured all the meat and left bread and a little fish for Mikhail. The latter, purple with rage, choked furiously over his meal and eyed his superior so fiercely that more than once I entertained wild hopes. However, the trouble blew over and we mounted a little after sunrise, Martemian leading now, at least five yards ahead, and Mikhail, sulky and hungry, in the rear, while I rode between, and to-day they did not tie my hands; they knew full well that escape was impossible, while one or the other could shoot me down at leisure.
At first, we passed through a belt of firs, sparse and storm-beaten on the northern side, their trunks coated with grey lichens, and the shadows were black here, in contrast to the endless sunlight on those vast plains that surrounded us as we journeyed on. Plains where I could see a man so far off that he was but a speck, and where the hardy, shaggy-coated cattle grazed, travelling slowly southward in search of the fresh green upon the slopes. Though it was spring and the sun shone, it made me shudder to think of the snow on those steppes in winter, of the rolling, soft, shimmering, deadly whiteness, and the cold and the north wind.
As I rode, I studied the square outlines of Martemian’s figure; his short, thick neck, red and folded at the nape, like a bull’s; his brutal head, his wide shoulders and strong, muscular limbs gripping the horse tightly with the knees. Not an easy man to kill, I reflected, and as if my thoughts were carried to him by the current of the air, he turned sharply, and looked me between the eyes, and scowled, meeting my glance. Then he rode on, and once I saw him slyly peep at my bag of roubles; meanwhile, however, I heard Mikhail’s horse plodding steadily behind, but to-day he did not sing. It is a dangerous sign when a noisy knave falls silent; I have ever found it so. The villain who stabbed Henri Quatre did not sing, I warrant, or whistle either.
As the sun travelled upward in the heavens, we travelled upward too, and the road lay straight and white before us, but now some low bushes grew beside it, sprayed with green, and presently we rode through the main street of a little hamlet, where the log houses were sparsely planted about the chapel and the graveyard. And here the peasants came out to stare at us and Martemian bought bread and meat and liquor—with my money; and I saw the women swinging in public—a sport that the Russian women loved so much that a swing of boards was made in every village green, and a slave regularly appointed to swing the wives and daughters of the freedmen. And some of these were very pretty, as I saw, but all were painted on their faces, and their arms and hands, and they were so curious at the sight of a foreigner in “German clothes,” that they must needs run up to me and feel of my clothing, and many of them forgot to drop the fata over their faces, and looked up at me coquettishly, for which one stout woman was seized by a puny, jealous husband and well beaten as we rode away.
This journeying on and on in silence grew more and more oppressive, and the pain in my head, though less than yesterday, was bad enough; yet, as I looked from the brutal, dogged face of Martemian to the sulky, watchful face of Mikhail, I grew hopeful. If I could but speak to the duller rogue—but therein lay my difficulty, and the beasts travelled well. We passed verst-stone after verst-stone, and all the way I tried to remember and to mark the road, and yet had no means of even blazing a tree trunk or casting a stone by the wayside, and the plains seemed to stretch to the edge of the world. My plan—a desperate one—would miscarry too, without fresh horses, and, as the day wore on, I stirred uneasily in my saddle. It could scarcely be to-day, and—the Princess Daria? Ah, but that way lay madness!