One day at least I would spend happily. So, I let my Madus tell me all that had happened in the valley during my absence; I heard also how much dried fruit, how many smoked trout, how many cheeses, she had in store for the winter; how many yards of beautiful linen she had woven from the flax she had cultivated with her own hands.
Last of all, she exhibited, with blushing cheeks, her little treasures: cunning little caps, and jackets, at sight of which my heart leapt for joy in my bosom. She confided to me in a whisper that, when Christmas should arrive, her Bethlehem crib would have received its occupant.
Oh, how gladly would I have remained with her! But it could not be. I had more ambitious plans for her. I was bent on escaping with her to the great world, where she should—as she deserved—become a fine lady.
After she had told me everything about herself, she asked me to relate what I had done while absent. When I told her how successful the expedition had proved, I found that the Madus who tended her doves and made cheeses in the Viszpa Ogrod, was vastly different from the Madus who had once accompanied the haidemaken expeditions. She grew pale with horror when I described the slaughter of the caravan; and the occurrence which resulted in my becoming the inheritor of the old Turk's crutch, and a lame leg. She became more composed, however, when I told her about the marvelous cure at the healing spring; and quite recovered her composure when I gave her the image of the Holy Virgin the prior had sent her. Ah me! that image was her death, as well as her salvation.
The next morning I told her I had to leave her again. She sought with tears and caresses to dissuade me from going. She clasped her arms around my neck, then flung herself at my feet, and clasped my knees—she seemed unable to control her wild despair.
I have often thought since that the poor child had a presentiment she would never again behold me in this life.
I sought in vain to comfort her; in vain I assured her that I would never leave her again after I returned from this expedition, from which I hoped to secure what would enable me to establish a home for her in some large city. She was inconsolable.
She accompanied me to the entrance to the rock-corridor, and would have gone clear to the cavern, had not her father met us just as we were entering the passage. He frightened her by saying it would be unsafe to venture among the haidemaken in her condition, as all robbers entertained the superstitious belief that the fourth finger from the hand of an unborn babe rendered the possessor invulnerable to bullet and sword.
Nyedzviedz would not even allow a last embrace, but thrust us roughly apart; and forced me to precede him into the corridor. I kept looking back from time to time, so long as the entrance remained in sight. My Madus stood, looking after me, in the circular opening of the rocky wall; she seemed like a saint encompassed by a halo of light, and as the corridor grew darker and more gloomy the radiant image at my back increased in brilliance until a sudden turn hid the beautiful vision from my sight.
That same evening we set out for Berdiczov—four-hundred haidemaken, with the culverin.