Andrew walked round the Cossacks' encampment. The bonfires at which the sentries were sitting were going out, and the sentries had fallen asleep; having, it would seem, too much indulged their Cossack appetites. Andrew marvelled at such carelessness, and thought it lucky that no strong forces of the enemy were at hand, and that there was nothing to fear. At last, he went to one of the carts, climbed into it and lay down on his back, bending his arms backwards and putting them under his head. He could not yet sleep, and remained a long time looking at the sky. It appeared all open to him; the air was pure and transparent; the compact mass of stars forming the milky way seemed to be all overflowing with light. At times, Andrew felt a sort of oblivion, and slumber, like a light fog, hid for a minute the sky from his sight; but the next moment it cleared away, and again he saw the heavens.
At this time, it seemed to him that a strange human face had passed before him. Thinking that it was nothing but an illusion of sleep, which would disappear, he opened his eyes wider, and saw that really an emaciated dried-up face bent over him and looked straight into his eyes. Long and coal-black locks of hair, uncombed and dishevelled, stole from beneath a veil thrown over the head. The strange brightness of the eyes, and the deathlike swarthiness of the strongly marked features, would almost have led to the supposition that it was a phantom. Andrew convulsively seized a matchlock and exclaimed, "Who art thou? If thou be an evil spirit—disappear; if thou be a human creature, thy joke is out of place. I'll kill thee at once!"
The figure answered only by putting its finger to its lips, and seemed to be imploring silence. Andrew let go his hold, and began to look attentively at it. The long hair, the neck, and brown half-naked bosom showed it to be a woman, but she was not a native of the country; her face was sunburnt, and bespoke suffering; her wide cheekbones stuck out over her shrunken cheeks; her narrow eyes were cut obliquely, with the outer corner raised. The more Andrew looked at her features, the more he found in them something which he knew. At last he could not refrain from asking, "Tell me, who art thou? It seems to me that I know thee, or have seen thee somewhere."
"Two years ago, in Kieff."
"Two years ago—in Kieff!" repeated Andrew, endeavouring to bring to mind all that his memory had retained of his collegian's life. He took once more an attentive survey of her, and suddenly exclaimed aloud, "Thou art the Tartar! the servant of that lady! of the voevoda's daughter!"
"Hush!" said the Tartar, imploringly, folding her hands, shuddering in all her frame, and at the same time turning her head to see that no one had been awakened by the shriek of Andrew.
"Tell me—tell me—why—wherefore art thou here?" said Andrew in a whisper almost choked, and interrupted at every moment by his internal agitation; "where is the lady? is she alive?"
"She is now in the town."
"In the town?" exclaimed he, again almost shrieking aloud, and he felt that all his blood rushed at once to his heart. "Why is she in the town?"
"Because the lord, her father, is there; it is now more than a year that he has been voevoda[26] in Doobno."