Mardokhaï left the room with his comrades, who were full of astonishment at his wisdom. Boolba remained alone, he felt a strange sensation, till then unknown to him; for the first time in his life he experienced anxiety. His heart beat feverishly—he was no more the Boolba of old, undaunted, steady, and strong as an oak; he had grown pusillanimous, he had grown weak. He shuddered at every noise, at the sight of every new Jewish figure, making its appearance at the end of the street. Thus did he feel all the day long, he neither ate nor drank, and not for one minute did he remove his eyes from the small window which looked into the street. At last at a late hour in the evening, came Mardokhaï and Yankel. Tarass felt his heart sink within him.
"What now? did you succeed?" asked he, with the impatience of a wild horse.
But even before the Jews had collected their senses to give him an answer, Tarass noticed that Mardokhaï had no longer his last temple-lock, which, though dirty, had yet before curled in ringlets from beneath his cap. It was to be seen that he had something to communicate, but he talked so incoherently that Tarass could not understand a word. Yankel, too, was every moment pressing his hand to his mouth, as if suffering from a bad cold.
"Oh? my dear lord," said Yankel, "now it is impossible; by Heavens, impossible! The people there are so very bad, that one ought to spit upon their very heads. Here, I take Mardokhaï to witness: Mardokhaï did what no man has yet done in this world; but Heaven forbids it to be as we wish. There are three thousand soldiers Under arms, and to-morrow the execution is to take place."
Tarass gazed steadfastly into the faces of the Jews; but no anger, no impatience was any—longer in his look.
"If my lord still wishes to see his son, the interview must take place to-morrow, early in the morning, before sunrise; the sentries have given their assent, and one of the officers has agreed to it. But may they know no happiness in the next world! Woe is me! what grasping people they are! there are none such, even among us! To every one of the sentries have I given fifty ducats, and to the officer"—
"Be it so; take me to him;" said Tarass, resolutely, and all his firmness at once returned to his heart. He assented to Yankel's proposal of assuming the dress of a German count; the dress being already brought by the far-seeing Jew.
It was now night. The master of the house—the above-mentioned red-haired freckly-faced Jew —produced a thin mattress, covered with a mat, and stretched it for Boolba on a bench. Yankel lay on the floor on a similar mattress. The redhaired Jew drank a small cup of some infusion, took off his coat, and, after having presented in his stockings and slippers an appearance something like that of a chicken, went with his Jewess into a kind of closet. Two Jewish boys lay down on the floor near the closet, as if they had been puppies. But Tarass slept not; he remained motionless, drumming on the table with his fingers. He had his pipe in his mouth, and puffed away the smoke, which made the Jew sneeze in his slumbers, and bury his nose under his coverlet. Scarcely was the sky tinted by the first pale gleam of the morning dawn, when Tarass pushed Yankel with his foot.
"Up, Jew! give me thy count's dress!"
He was dressed in no time; he blackened his mustachios and eyebrows, put a small dark-coloured cap on his head—and none of his most intimate Cossacks could have recognised him. To look at him, he seemed to be not more than thirty-five years old. The flush of health was on his cheeks, and even the scars on his face gave an expression of authority to his features. The dress, adorned with gold, became him greatly.