“Behind Dubatoŭk's farmstead others were waiting, novices they were. At first we thought of sending them after Śvieciłovič, in case you were killed, but Śvieciłovič sat with us till the morning, while Varona was wounded. We set them off after you. Dubatoŭk still cannot forgive himself for setting these snivellers on your track. You'd never have escaped from us, the real Hunt. Then we thought you'd take the roadway, but you went over the waste land, and you even forced the Hunt to waste a whole hour in front of the swamp. Until the dogs fell on the scent — and it was already too late. We cannot, even now, understand how you had managed to escape from us then, you dodged us so well. But take my word for this: had we caught you, you'd have been out of luck.”
“But why did the horn blow from the side? And where are the novices now?”
Stachievič forced himself to speak:
“One of us played the hunting-horn, he rode nearby. And the novices — here they are, lying on the ground. Previously we were fewer in number and took scarecrows with us on spare horses. We supposed that only you and Ryhor were lying in wait. But we did not think there'd be an army of you. And hard did we pay for that. Here they all are: Pacuk, Jan Styrovič, Paŭluk Babajed. And even Varona. You aren't worth even a finger-nail of his. A clever man was Varona, but he, too, has not escaped God's judgement.”
“Why did you throw me that note saying that King Stach's Wild Hunt comes at night?”
“What are you saying? Phantoms don't throw notes. We wouldn't have done such a stupid thing.”
“Bierman must have done it,” I thought, but said:
“But it was the note that convinced me you were not phantoms, at the very moment when I had begun to believe you were. Be thankful to the unknown well-wisher, for hardly would I have been brave enough to fight with phantoms.”
Stachievič turned pale and with lips hardly moving, he said:
“We'd have torn that person to pieces. As for you, I hate you in spite of the fact that it is beyond my power to do anything. And I'll keep silent.”
Michał's hand grabbed the prisoner by the scruff of his neck and squeezed hard.
“Speak. Otherwise all's up with you…”
“The deuce take it, you're the powerful ones… You can be satisfied, you serfs… But we taught you a lesson, too. Let anyone try to learn what became of those who complained most in the village of Jarki and whom Antoś wiped off the face of the earth. You can ask anyone you like. It's a pity that Dubatoŭk didn't give the order to lie in wait for you in the daytime and shoot you. For that would've been easy to do, especially when you were on the way to the Kulšas, Biełarecki. I saw you. Even then we realized you had prepared the noose for us. Kulša, the old woman, even though mad, could still have blurted out something. She had begun to guess that she was a tool in our hands the day of Raman's murder. And we only had to threaten her once with the appearance of the Wild Hunt. Her head was weak, and she immediately went balmy.”
The abomination this man was telling us about made my blood boil. It was only now that my eyes were opened to what depths the gentry had fallen. And within me I agreed with Ryhor that it was necessary to destroy this kind of people, that it had raised a stink across the whole world.
“Go on, you skunk!”
“When we learned that Ryhor had agreed to carry out the search together with you, we realized that things would be tough for us. For the first time I saw Dubatoŭk frightened. His face even turned yellow. We had to stop, and not for the sake of wealth, but in order to save our own hides. And we appeared at the castle.”
“Who was it that yelled then?” I asked severely.
“He who yelled is no more. Here he lies… Pacuk…”
Stachievič was frankly amusing himself in relating everything arrogantly, with such a display of courage, as if he were about to begin to wail at any moment, alternately lowering and raising his voice. I heard the howling of the Wild Hunt for the last time: inhuman, frightening, demoniacal.
“Raman!” he sobbed and wailed. “Raman! Revenge. We'll come. Raman of the last generation, out with you!”
On and on rolled his voice across the Giant's Gap somewhere into the distance, his voice and its echo shouting to one another, completely filling the air. It made my flesh creep.
But Stachievič laughed.
