“That I’ll be sworn he has,” said the other; “and so long as he pays me well, I am ready to serve him, though I do not much relish so hard a ride as he sent us, in a storm, on a fool’s errand. Yet if I could find out who the two young gallants were, who gave us such confoundedly hard blows, I should like to see how they felt under like treatment. Some more vodka, Kruntz, that’s the stuff; now for our pipes. Drown care first, and then smoke him dry, and he won’t trouble you; that’s the way for honest men like us to live.”
These two worthies, after enjoying their tobacco, left the room. They will be easily recognised as the myrmidons of the Count Erintoff, sent forward in great haste by their master, to trace the horsemen, who had arrested him in his flight with the Gipsy maid—a circumstance the more embittering to his pride, after his success in securing her person. He had also dispatched others in an opposite direction, with the same orders.
Karl at length awoke to find that the shades of evening had already enveloped the town in obscurity; and he rushed out in great dismay, at having overslept himself, to endeavour to gain some tidings of his young master and his friend; but in vain—he could hear nothing of them. The honest fellow now became greatly alarmed, making inquiries of every body he met, till finding that his master had certainly not yet arrived in Tver, he lay down, to await his coming, on one of the wooden benches in the eating-room, when he very soon again fell into a sleep—not the less sound from his deep potations of quass—and did not awake till long after the morning had dawned, and the inmates of the hotel were astir. He started up, rubbing his eyes, and looking around to convince himself where he was; when recollecting the events of the previous day, he instantly set off to gain intelligence of his master. With eager agitation, he questioned all who came in his way, high and low; but most people pushed the lowly unshorn serf aside, without deigning to answer him; some ridiculed him, and bade him seek a new master, if he had lost his old one, for he would never find him again. Among those whom he had casually addressed, was one of the two individuals, whose conversation he had partly overheard when sitting by his side on the previous evening.
“You are inquiring for your master and his friend,” asked Groff; “two young men, you say, whom you parted from about twenty versts off; as they rode by themselves through the forest.” By thus interrogating the honest, but simple Karl, he learned every particular he sought to know respecting Ivan Galetzoff and his companion.
Poor Karl spent the long day in great tribulation, walking to and fro in front of the inn, inquiring of everybody who arrived from the direction of St. Petersburg, if they had overtaken his master and fellow traveller; but obtaining no intelligence, he proceeded along the road for some miles in the hope of meeting them; again unsuccessful, he returned in case they should have passed by some other way. Towards evening, when he perceived the lost cavaliers approaching, his joy knew no bounds.
Running to meet them, and ere they had time to dismount, he seized their hands and covered them with kisses. He gave their horses in charge to the ostler, and conducted them to their room, where they were glad to rest, after the excitement and fatigues of the preceding day.
Their arrival had been observed by others with equal satisfaction to that felt by honest Karl, though arising from very dissimilar motives. Groff and his companion concealed within a doorway, watched them as they dismounted, and being fully satisfied of their identity, both from Karl’s description, and their own recollection of the wild horsemen, by whom they had been felled in the forest, they immediately mounted their horses to convey their information to the Count.
Ivan felt but little inconvenience from his wound; the aged Hagar having treated it so efficaciously. He was, therefore, enabled to continue on the journey to Moscow, early the next morning; notwithstanding the numerous eloquent reasons urged by their considerate landlord, to persuade them to delay it.
They crossed the magnificent Volga, by a bridge of boats. This mighty current rushing onward in its course, divides Europe from Asia; it is navigable well nigh to its very source—a distance of four thousand miles; and after bathing the walls of Astracan, finishes its career in the far distant Caspian. Its banks are peopled by the warlike tribes of Cossacks, who so unrelentingly harassed the skirts of the French army, during their disastrous retreat from Russia. On its noble waters were being transported rich cargoes of grain, the produce of its fertile banks, in boats of various sizes, rigged with a single but lofty mast, supporting an immense sail, and a long rudder, projecting far beyond the stern, which is admirably adapted to guide them, when passing the rapids.
The villages through which the travellers’ route lay, were forlorn and miserable; being generally the property of the Seigneurs, and occupied by their serfs. They consisted of a single long street, lined on either side with cottages built of rough logs: those of the more affluent being formed of the same materials, hewn and squared into more regular shape. Their gable ends projecting far into the street, discovered occasionally patches of rude carving; small holes perforated in the walls serving as windows.