"He has gone off to the woods!" cried some noble. "Come, brothers." "Be silent!" roared with powerful voice Yuzva Butrym. "My lady," said he, "do not conceal him! That is a cursed man!" Olenka raised both hands above her head: "I join you in cursing him!" "Amen!" shouted the nobles. "To the buildings, to the woods! We will find him! After the murderer!" "Come on! come on!" The clatter of sabres and tramp of feet was heard again. The nobles hurried out through the porch, and mounted with all speed. A part of them searched still for a time in the stables, the cow-houses, and hay-shed; then their voices began to retreat toward the woods. Panna Aleksandra listened till they had ceased altogether; then she tapped feverishly at the door of the room in which she had hidden Kmita. "There is no one here now, come out." Pan Andrei pushed himself forth from the room as if drunk. "Olenka!" he began. She shook her loosened tresses, which then covered her face like a veil. "I wish not to see you or know you. Take a horse and flee hence!" "Olenka!" groaned Kmita, stretching forth his hands. "There is blood on your hands, as on Cain's!" screamed she, springing back as if at the sight of a serpent. "Be gone, for the ages!" CHAPTER VII. The day rose gray, and lighted a group of ruins in Volmontovichi,--the burned remnants of houses, out-buildings, bodies of people and horses burned or slain with swords. In the ashes amidst dying embers crowds of pale people were seeking for the bodies of the dead or the remains of their property. It was a day of mourning and misfortune for all Lauda. The numerous nobility had obtained, it is true, a victory over Kmita's men, but a grievous and bloody one. Besides the Butryms, who had fallen in greater numbers than the others, there was not a village in which widows were not bewailing husbands, parents sons, or children their fathers. It was the more difficult for the Lauda people to finish the invaders, since the strongest were not at home; only old men or youths of early years took part in the battle. But of Kmita's soldiers not one escaped. Some yielded their lives in Volmontovichi, defending themselves with such rage that they fought after they were wounded; others were caught next day in the woods and killed without mercy. Kmita himself was as if he had dropped into water. The people were lost in surmising what had become of him. Some insisted that he had reached the wilderness of Zyelonka and gone thence to Rogovsk, where the Domasheviches alone might find him. Many too asserted that he had gone over to Hovanski and was bringing the enemy; but these were the fewest, their fears were untimely.