Roch, who had left Veronka, was just emerging on the poplar road, when someone on horseback appeared, galloping at breakneck speed in a cloud of dust. The carts that carried Staho’s timber impeded him and he tried to pass round them by the field. “If ye haste so, you will founder your horse,” they cried in vain. He went by them, and galloped on, till the horse was panting and blown. “Adam!” Roch exclaimed; “wait a minute!” Young Klemba just stopped long enough to roar: “Know that two people lie murdered in the forest. O Lord! how frightened I am! I had been just by, tending the horses, and was coming home with the lad Gulbas, when—just at Boryna’s cross—my horse shied. I looked and saw two people lying in the juniper-bushes. I called out to them; but they made no more answer than if dead.” “O fool, what fable are you telling us now?” his hearers cried. “Then go look yourselves: there they lie! Gulbas saw them as well, but he ran away to the _Komorniki_.” “Good God!—Then make haste to the Voyt and tell him.” “He is not yet back from town,” someone said. “Then to the Soltys! He is near the blacksmith’s, mending the road with other workmen,” they called after him as he clattered away. The news of the murder had flashed round the village, and people were crossing themselves with fear. Someone informed his Reverence, who came out to ask about it; and all most impatiently awaited the return of the Soltys, who at once had gone in a cart, with Klemba and some labourers. They waited for ever so long. It was growing dusk when he came back, and—to everybody’s amazement—along with the Voyt’s horse and britzka; in a very ferocious humour too, cursing, slashing at his poor jade, and doing his best to pass through the crowd. But someone seized the bridle; and, forced to stop, he cried: “Those mischievous boys! they have been trying a practical joke. There was no one slain: only some people asleep in the bushes. Oh, let me but catch that young Klemba, he shall pay for the fright given—and that soundly!—So I met the Voyt and brought him home with me ... and that’s all!—Vee—o! Little One!” “But,” one man remarked, looking into the open cart, “what ails the Voyt? He is sprawling there like a sick man!” “He’s asleep, that’s all!” And the Soltys whipped the horses into a trot. “What mischievous rascals! To make up such a story!” “It’s all young Gulbas’ doing: he is always the first in such games!” “Rub them both down with an oaken towel! Teach them to scare folk for nothing!” Very indignant over the whole affair, they were going home, when on their way they met the _Komorniki_, with heavy faggots on their backs, and Kozlova marching at their head, though nearly bent double with her load. Seeing them, she leant back, and remained propped up by her burden. “He has duped you finely, has the Soltys!” she sneered, almost speechless with fatigue. “Ha! No dead men indeed were in the forest, but worse perchance.”