CHAPTER LXVIII.
Next day came the moment of Zbyshko's departure. He was sitting high on a large war-horse, and his friends had surrounded him. Yagenka, standing near the stirrup, raised her sad blue eyes to the young man in silence, as if wishing to look at him sufficiently before parting. Matsko and Father Kaleb were at the other stirrup, and near them stood Hlava and Anulka. Zbyshko turned his face first toward one side, then toward the other, exchanging such brief words as are said usually before a long journey: "Be well!" "May God conduct thee!" "It is time!" "Hei! it is time! it is time!"
He had taken farewell before of all, and of Yagenka, at whose feet he had fallen in giving thanks for her goodness. But now, as he looked at her from his lofty saddle, he wished to say some new heartfelt word, since her uplifted eyes and face said to him so expressively, "Come back!" that the heart rose in him with palpable gratitude. And as if responding to her unspoken eloquence he said,—
"Yagus, to thee as to my own sister Thou knowest!— I will say no more!"
"I know. God reward thee."
"And remember uncle."
"And do thou remember—"
"I shall return, be sure of that, unless I perish."
"Do not perish."
Once already, in Plotsk, when he had mentioned this expedition, she said the same words to him, "Do not perish;" but this time these words came from profounder depths of her spirit, and, perhaps to hide her tears, she bent the same moment, so that her forehead touched Zbyshko's knee for an instant.
Meanwhile the mounted attendants at the gate, who were holding pack-horses ready now for the road, began to sing:
"The ring will not be lost; the golden ring
Will not be lost.
A raven will bear it back from the field
To the maiden."
