After a most fatiguing journey, we enter Polesia[*]. Pulaski wept at leaving his native country.
“At least,” exclaims he with a mournful accent---“at least I have faithfully served you, and I now only go into exile that I may be enabled to serve you again.”
So many fatigues had exhausted the strength of Lodoiska. Arrived at Novogorod[†], we resolve to stop there on purpose to give her time to recover her strength. It was our design to remain some days, but some of the country people whom we questioned, frankly informed us, that a number of troops were in motion in that neighbourhood, on purpose to arrest a certain person of the name of Pulaski, who had occasioned the king of Poland to be taken prisoner, and carried off from the midst of his own capital.
Justly alarmed at this intelligence, we remain but a few hours in this town, where we, however, found means to purchase some horses without being discovered.
We then pass the Desna above Czernicove[‡]; and following the banks of the Sula, we cross that river at Perevoloczna, where we learn that Pulaski, who had been traced to Novogorod, had escaped as it were by miracle, and that the Russian soldiers, indefatigable in their pursuit, were still searching after him, and were in hopes of making him prisoner.
It was now again become necessary to fly once more, and once more to change our route; we therefore instantly made for the immense forests which cover the face of the country between the Sula and the Zem, in the dark retreats of which we hoped to find shelter from our foes.
We at length discover a cavern, in which we were reduced to the necessity of taking up our abode. A she-bear disputes with us the entrance into this asylum equally solitary and frightful: we assail, we kill her, and devour her young.
Pulaski was wounded in this encounter: Lodoiska, worn out with fatigue and distress, was scarcely able to support her existence: the winter was approaching, and the cold was already excessive.
Pursued by the Russians in the inhabited parts; menaced by wild and ferocious animals in this vast desart; destitute of any arms but our swords; reduced in a short time to eat our very horses; what was to become of us?
The danger of the situation to which my father-in-law and my wife were reduced, had become so pressing, that no other fear any longer alarmed me. My personal safety, hitherto so dear to me, did not now suggest itself once to my mind: I felt only for theirs. I resolved, therefore, to procure to them at any rate those succours which their situation required, which was still more deplorable than my own; and leaving them both with the promise of rejoining them in a short time, I take a few of the diamonds belonging to Lodoiska, and follow the stream of the Warsklo.