My horse knew the road well, for he had borne me many times by the same route. But love had never caused me to drive him so wildly forward as did now the madness of hate and the desire for revenge. My madness seemed to infect him. His hoofs spurned the earth as we flew through air. Within half an hour I stood in the presence of Falbofsky, who sat with his wife talking and laughing, and I doubt not telling her the story of how he had served the two fools who had loved to hang at her apron strings.
She cried out when she saw me. She was accustomed to see me look differently.
‘Chelminsky!’ she exclaimed in terror; ‘your eyes are full of murder.’
‘My heart also,’ I said. ‘Draw, Falbofsky. This time you must fight, whether you will or no!’
‘Oh, I am ready,’ he laughed, drawing his weapon, ‘if you must needs have another lesson!’
We crossed swords, and I was conscious of our fair Helen rushing from the room screaming for help. ‘I must make haste,’ I thought, ‘and get this matter finished before they come to interrupt.’ We began to fight cautiously.
‘While yet you have hearing and understanding,’ I said, as our swords touched, ‘let me tell you that your wife is innocent of all sin. I would not have you die suspecting her falsely.’
‘Die!’ he said with an oath. ‘Death will not come at your call, my friend; as for my wife, she knows a man from a child as well as I. You have been punished enough for the wrong you have done. Will you go home?’
For answer I fell upon him with vigour. This last insult cut me deeply, wounding my vanity. I would show him what manner of child I was. If I might not wound the heart of a woman, I could at least cut to pieces any man who presumed to offend me!
Falbofsky was, I could see, surprised and alarmed by my skill with the sword. He had begun the fight leisurely, as one reserving his strength. Soon he was fencing with all his art, and fencing well. But this day I would take no denying, and within a few minutes I had him disarmed and at mercy. I think I should have given him the point without pity, but that his fair wife ran shrieking into the room at the moment, followed by servants, and implored me to spare him.
‘Chelminsky, do not slay,’ she cried. ‘Chelminsky, my friend! See, he is wounded already!’
I had not observed this. It was true, however; his sword-arm was soaked with blood.
‘Well, I will spare him,’ I said, ‘since you ask me!’ Whereupon I stalked from the room very proudly and happily, for I felt my honour had been amply vindicated.
CHAPTER III
Then I rode to Mazeppa’s house in order to find how he had fared in his ride home. To be sent riding back to one’s friends stripped of all clothes and tied like a pack to the horse is a shameful thing, and I intended to have my fun out of Mazeppa. He had striven daily to better me in the matter of the lady whose favour we both desired, and I was not sorry that to-day, at least, I had had the laugh of him. Who had seen him as he came jolting, naked, into the stable yard, I wondered! How he would hate the man or men who saw and released him—I knew Mazeppa well! Those men would not remain long in his service! Sweet Lady of Kazan! to ride naked and bound among one’s own servants! A shame indeed!
But to my surprise nothing was known of Mazeppa at his own house.
‘And the horse?’ I inquired.
The servant smiled. ‘It would need a clever horse to rid himself of our master!’ he said. ‘The Pan is a Cossack, and sticks to his horse like the devil to a weak soul! This day he rides the new horse, indeed—an untried Tartar beast from the Ukraine, bought from a merchant who brings a number for sale each year. But the horse is not foaled that can throw Mazeppa!’
Knowing what I knew, I said nothing, but took a bundle of clothes and some food, and galloped forth in order to take up Mazeppa’s track from the spot in which Falbofsky lay in ambush for us.
The ground was soft, and it was easy enough to follow the hoof marks. Falbofsky’s men had first well startled the horse by shouting and beating him with sticks, so that he had fled at full gallop, kicking up the grass and earth as he went. A child could have led me upon the scent.
But though I rode ten leagues and more before darkness came to render further tracking impossible I had not yet overtaken Mazeppa, and I was obliged to seek shelter for the night in a village which lay a mile from the cross-country path chosen by the horse, which had avoided passing close to the habitations of man, as though aware that he bore a burden which must not be gazed upon.
Very early in the morning I set out once more upon my pursuit, and, taking up the track where I left it, was soon in full chase.
And I had scarcely travelled more than two or three leagues when I came upon what at first sight appeared to be Mazeppa lying dead beneath the horse, which was as dead as its rider. He was still tightly bound to the beast, which lay with protruding tongue and glazed eyes starting from their sockets, having—as it seemed—tripped and fallen headlong over the trunk of a tree uprooted by the wind, while galloping through the forest in the darkness.
Now, though I was never sure at this time whether I more loved or hated Mazeppa, the sight of his poor naked body come to so pitiful an end filled me with sorrow, and I dismounted very mournfully in order to disengage him from the carcass of the horse which lay upon him. First I cut the bonds that bound him to the dead beast; after that I dragged the burden from him, for it lay upon one leg and one side of him, covering his chest, but leaving his head free.
‘Poor dead Mazeppa!’ I murmured; ‘thou hast been ever ready to better me, my friend, but I have loved thee, nevertheless, more than other men that I have known!’
As I freed him from the weight that had oppressed him, Mazeppa seemed to groan; his eyelids quivered as though he would come to. I took water and sprinkled his face. Presently he sighed and opened his eyes. He stared dully at me for a minute; then he seemed to remember and sat up to look around. It was plain that he had not broken his neck, like the poor beast that carried him.
He rose to his feet and examined the dead horse, spurning it with his foot.
‘Take these clothes, Mazeppa,’ I said; ‘it is a mercy and a marvel that you are not as dead as the beast.’
‘Curse him!’ said Mazeppa; ‘and doubly, trebly and eternally damned be Falbofsky in this and all worlds! I am shamed and disgraced for ever.’
‘No one saw thee except Falbofsky and his men,’ I said, thinking to soothe him.
‘Curse thee, too, for a fool!’ he cried angrily. ‘Do not men’s tongues wag? All the world will know of it for fifty leagues around!’ His jaws shook with the cold, but he seemed to take no heed of it, though he quickly donned the clothes I brought. I gave him food; but, though he must have been starving, he ate it without thinking what he did; his thoughts were far away.
‘How came you free?’ he said suddenly. ‘Did you escape them?’
‘My horse escaped,’ I said, ‘or doubtless I should have been treated as you were. As it was, I was left gagged and bound in the wood, stripped also; but a peasant found me and carried me home in his cart. Then I rode across to Falbofsky’s house, and——’
‘You have not killed him—do not tell me that!’ cried Mazeppa, so loudly and furiously that I was startled. ‘Dare not to tell me you have killed Falbofsky!’
‘I fought him and wounded him, but spared his life,’ I said, ‘because she——’
‘She!’ cried Mazeppa, and repeated