“Who is in the sleigh, Kaya,
can you see? Keep low in the shadow and don’t
move your head.”
“The Countess, Velasco, and Petrokoff and two
other men.”
“Gendarmes?”
“I think they are gendarmes,
Velasco. They look from side to side of the
road as they pass and urge the driver forward.”
“Bozhe moi, little one!
Keep close to me and hold your breath; in another
moment they will be past.”
“Now Velasco!
Now they are out of sight; the last tinkle of the
bells sounds in the distance. Shall we lie here,
or follow?”
The gypsey took a long breath and
rose to his feet, brushing the snow from his trousers
and coat. The girl still sat crouching behind
the drift, peering ahead into the dark windings of
the road and listening.
“Come, little one!” said
Velasco, “The fields are covered deep with the
snow; there are no paths and we cannot go back.
Give me your hand. You will freeze if you linger.”
The girl put her hand in his, springing
up, and they darted into the dark windings together,
making little rushes forward, hand in hand; then poising
on one foot and listening.
“They might turn back you know, Velasco.”
“Do you hear the bells?”
“Not yet.”
Then they ran on.
The night grew darker and darker;
the sky was heavy and black with clouds, and between
them a faint light flitted occasionally like the ghost
of a moon, but feeble and wan. It struggled with
the clouds, piercing them for an instant; and then
it was gone and the sky grew blacker, like a great
inky; surface, reflecting shadows on the snowfields,
gigantic and strange. The wind had died down,
but the cold was intense, bitter, and the chill of
the ice crept into the bones.
“What is that dark thing ahead on the road,
can you see, Velasco?”
“Hist Kaya, I see!
It is big and black. It seems to be a house,
or an inn, for look there are lights like
stars just appearing.”
“Not that, Velasco, look closer,
in front of the house; does it look like a sleigh?”
Velasco’s grip tightened on
the woolen glove of the girl and they halted together,
half hesitating.
“A sleigh, Kaya? Stay
here in the shadow I will steal ahead and
look.”
“Don’t leave me; let me go with you!”
The woolen glove clung to him and
they went forward again, a step at a time, with eyes
straining through the snow.
“Is it the sleigh of the Countess,
big and black with three horses abreast?”
“Yes it looks so.”
“Is there some one inside?”
“The driver perhaps! No,
there is no one. Velasco, they have gone into
the inn to drink something warm and ask questions perhaps ’Have
you seen two gypsies, one dark and one fair?’ Ah,
Velasco, what shall we do? Shall we creep past
on tiptoe?”
The girl drew close to him and looked
up in his face. “What shall we do, Velasco speak!
You stand there with your eyes half shut, in a dream.
Shall we run, Velasco? Shall we run on ahead?”
The gypsey put his finger to his lips
and crept forward. “This is a God-forsaken
hole, Kaya!” he whispered, “No telegraph and
perhaps no horses; they could only get oxen or mules.
It will take several minutes to drink their hot tea and
the brutes are quite fresh!”
He moved cautiously, swiftly, to the
hitching post, fumbling with the straps. The
horses whinnied a little, nosing one another and pawing
the earth.
“What are you doing, Velasco?”
“Jump in, Kaya, jump in quick,
or the driver will hear! Take the fiddle!
Ah, the deuce with this knot!”
With a last tug the knot yielded.
Velasco dashed to the step and sprang on it; then
his knees gave beneath him, and he fell in the snow
as the horses leaped forward.
“Oi oi! Tysyacha
chertei! A pest!”
With oaths and shrieks of rage the
driver rushed from the kitchen of the inn, wiping
the vodka from his beard with his sleeve. From
the tea-room three other men rushed forward, also
shouting, and behind them the Countess.
“What is it?” she screamed,
“Have the horses run away? Where is the
sleigh and my buffalo robe? Are they stolen?
Catch the thieves catch them!”
Velasco still lay in the snow, stunned
by his fall, a dark patch like a shadow. The
sleigh had turned suddenly and veered around, not half
a rod distant. Kaya stood with the reins uplifted,
dragging back on the bits; and the horses were rearing,
plunging, back on their haunches, slipping on the
ice.
“Velasco!” she cried, “Velasco!”
Her voice rang out like a trumpet,
echoing over the snow; and as she cried, she swept
the horses about and lashed them with the whip, until
they came leaping and trembling close to the patch
on the snow, which had begun to stir slowly, awaking
from the swoon.
“Ah, if I were a man!”
she cried, “If I were only a man and could lift
you!” She clinched her teeth, swinging the whip,
reining back the struggling animals with her slim,
white hands from which she had torn the gloves.
As the figure moved again uneasily,
half sitting up in the snow, the men rushed forward.
“Here they are the
gypsies! We have them! They were stealing
the sleigh, the rascals!”
As they sprang at Velasco, surrounding
him, there came suddenly a swift whizz through the
air, a singing as of a hornet, and the heavy lash
struck them, across the face, the eyes, the shoulders,
stinging and sharp, leaving cruel welts as it struck.
The driver screamed out, half blinded. The
gendarmes started back. Petrokoff fell on
his knees and cowered behind a bush, his fat body
trembling and his hands outstretched as if praying:
“For the love of the saints!” he cried,
“Don’t strike!”
The lash flashed through the air,
blinding and terrible in its rapidity. The gypsey
leaned over the dash-board, her face white, her eyes
dark with rage, her cap on the back of her yellow curls;
and the whip seemed to leap between her fingers like
something alive.
“Velasco!” she screamed,
“Get up! Come ah, come, while
I beat them, the fiends!”
The cry seemed to pierce the benumbed
brain of her companion, as the lash the skin.
The dark patch moved again and Velasco struggled to
his feet; he ran towards the sleigh. The girl
leaned forward once more and as the gendarmes
sprang towards them again, swearing at her and shouting,
she lashed them fiercely across the face and the eyes,
mercilessly, with little cries of rage. Velasco
tumbled in beside her on the seat.
“Are you there?” she cried, “Are
you safe?”
Then she turned, and loosening the
reins the lash fell on the horses, cutting them sharply;
and they dashed forward, the foam dripping from their
bits and their hoofs striking sparks from the ice as
they fled, galloping madly, swiftly, through the snow.
In a moment the inn was left behind,
the shouting and swearing died away in the distance,
and there was silence, broken only by the panting
of the horses and the sound of their hoofs galloping.
Kaya still urged them forward, shaking the reins
in her left hand and lashing with the whip.
“You are safe!” she cried, “You
are there, Velasco?”
And then as the silence continued,
a great fear came over her; her heart seemed to leap
in her throat and her pulses stopped beating.
She stooped over him, unheeding the horses.
They were in the midst of the forest now, and the
next town was several versts distant. It was
dark and she put her face close to his, crying out:
“Velasco! Velasco!”
Then she saw that he had fainted again;
from his forehead a dark stream was gushing slowly;
and when she touched it, it was warm and wet.
She gave a little cry.
The horses galloped on, but the sleigh
moved more smoothly and slid over the icy surface
of the snow. Kaya wound the reins about the
dash-board. They were quiet now, let them gallop!
She bent again over her companion and, taking the
snow that lay on the side of the sleigh, she bathed
the wound with it, staunching the flow with her handkerchief,
holding his head against her breast.
“Velasco!” she whispered
low, as if afraid he might waken and hear: “It
is better now. The wound has stopped bleeding only
a drop or two comes on my handkerchief! You
struck it on the runners as you fell; I will bind
it now with my scarf. Velasco dear
Velasco! Open your eyes and look at me smile
at me! We are safe. We are alone in the
forest and the horses are galloping. Soon we
shall be at the station in the train!
A few hours from the frontier only a few
hours Velasco!”
He stirred in her arms and moaned,
and his eye-lids quivered as if trying to open.
Kaya took the scarf from her waist and began to wind
it slowly about the wound on his forehead. Her
breath came in little gasps through her parted lips.
“Have I your blood too on my
hands, Velasco? Ah, waken and look at me!
We have only a few hours more together a
few hours! Then you will never see me again.
Never never!”
She clasped him closer to her breast
and bent over him in terror. “Don’t
die, Velasco! The wound has stopped bleeding.
Why don’t you open your eyes? Don’t
die! If you die I shall die too. I love
you, Velasco! I love you I love you!”
She laid her cheek to his cold one
and tried to warm it. She covered him with her
cloak. It grew darker and colder, and the horses
galloped on. Presently he stirred again in her
arms and opened his eyes, and they looked at one another.
“Kaya” he said, “I heard you I
heard you!”
She shrank back away from him: “You heard me?”
she stammered.
Then he fainted again.
The horses galloped on. The
fields of snow stretched in the distance, the frost
on the surface glittering like myriads of tiny dew-drops.
Through the inky blackness of the clouds the moon shone
out fitfully, Streaking the road with flashes of light,
pale and shadowy. Ahead gleamed the lamps of
the station. The hoofs rang on the frozen snow.
Suddenly Velasco lifted his head from
the breast of Kaya. He steadied himself and
sat upright in the seat. The wound was bound
about by the red scarf and his face looked white in
the faint moon-beams. There was blood on his
jacket and the folds of his vest, and the scarf was
spotted with crimson blotches.
He stared straight ahead at the tossing
manes of the horses, their galloping bodies, three
abreast, plunging and straining in the harness; the
reins knotted to the dash-board; the dark, winding
road bordered by snow-drifts; the lights in the distance
looming nearer, and the bulk of the station.
His eyes were shining under the bandage, wide-open
beneath the brows.
Kaya drew away from him slowly, burying
herself in the corner of the sleigh, drawing the buffalo
robe close about her and trembling. The cold
was bitter.
He drank in the icy air in long breaths,
and it seemed to give him strength, to clear the fumes
of the brain. He was like one who has been drowning
and is coming to life again gradually. Suddenly
he turned and they faced one another. The hoofs
rang against the ice, pounding forward; the sleigh
was lurching, and the runners slipped and slid in
the snow.
“Kaya!”
“Velasco.”
He put his arms out and they closed
around her; he drew her nearer and nearer with all
the strength in his body, and she yielded slowly,
resisting and weak. She yielded until his lips
were on hers, and then she flung out her arms with
a little cry and they clung together, closely, silently.
The horses galloped on and the sleigh lurched faster and
faster.