He had no time to answer her; for suddenly, as if risen out of the ground, Kozlova appeared, standing in front of them and looking on the pair with a wicked smile. “Master Yanek,” she said in soft tones, “they are seeking you throughout Lipka.” “What can the matter be?” “Three carts, full of gendarmes, have come to the village.” He started up, greatly upset, and made off as fast as was seemly. Yagna too returned to the village in deep trouble, Kozlova walking by her side. “I fear I have interrupted you two ... in your prayers!” she hissed. “By no means. He was reading to me from a book with certain tales done into verse.” “Oh. I fancied something very different indeed. His mother had begged me to seek him.... Coming this way, I look around: there is no one.... Then I think of giving a look under this pear-tree ... and behold, there are my turtle-doves, cooing one to another.—’Tis a very convenient spot ... quite out of sight!—Aye, aye!” Yagna broke away from her in a rage, screaming: “May your filthy tongue be struck dumb for ever!” And Kozlova cried after her: “And ye’ll always have someone to shrive you!” CHAPTER X On entering the village, Yagna at once could see that something out of the ordinary was going on. The dogs in the farm-yard were barking in great excitement; the little ones, hiding in the orchards, peeped out from behind the trees and hedges; the people, though it was yet far from sunset, were fast coming in from the fields; women were whispering together in groups; every face bore an expression of disquietude, and in every eye there was a look of alarm and suspense. “What has come about?” she asked the Balcerek girl, peering round the corner of her hut. “I cannot say; belike soldiers coming from the forest.” “Jesu Maria! Soldiers!” And her knees trembled with terror. “Young Klemba,” added the Prychek girl, as she ran by, “says they are Cossacks from Vola.” In great dismay, Yagna hurried on to her cabin, where her mother, sitting on the threshold, and spinning, was in earnest talk with several women. “We have both seen the same thing—the men sitting in the porch, and their leader with the priest inside the house.” “And they have sent the organist’s lad Michael to fetch the Voyt.” “The Voyt! then it can be no trifle. Ho, ho! something is in the wind!” “It may be they have only come to collect the taxes.” “With such a number of men? No, they come surely for something more than that.” “Perhaps; but, mark my words, they are here for no good!” Yagustynka came up. “I,” she said, “can tell you why they have come.” All crowded round her, stretching their necks out like so many geese. “They have come to take us women into the army!” she cried with a croaking laugh that no one took up; and Dominikova remarked sourly: “Ye must always be making some wretched joke!”