VI.
Zbyszko set out as promised, for Macko was feeling far worse. At first, joy and the first household chores sustained him, but on the third day the fever returned and the pain in his side flared up with such force that he had to take to bed.
Zbyszko went ahead during the day, inspected the beehives, saw that nearby there was a huge footprint in the mud, and spoke with the beekeeper Wawrek, who slept nearby in a hut at night together with a pair of fierce Podhale dogs, but was just about to move back to the village due to the autumn cold.
The two of them dismantled the hut, took the dogs, and here and there smeared a bit of honey on the tree trunks to lure the beast with the scent, after which Zbyszko returned home and began to prepare for the expedition. For warmth, he dressed in a sleeveless elk-skin tunic; on his head he put an iron mail coif so the bear could not tear the skin from his scalp; finally he took a well-shod two-pronged pitchfork with barbs, and a broad steel axe on an oak handle, not as short as those used by carpenters. By evening milking time he was already at the spot, and having chosen a convenient place, he crossed himself, sat down, and waited.
Red rays of the setting sun shone between the branches of the pines. Among the treetops crows thrashed about, cawing and flapping their wings; here and there hares hopped toward the water, rustling through the yellowing bilberry bushes and fallen leaves; sometimes a swift marten darted along a beech tree. In the thickets the chirping of birds still sounded, gradually dying away.
Even at sunset there was no peace in the forest. Soon a herd of wild boar passed near Zbyszko with great noise and snorting, and then moose trotted by in a long line, each holding its head at the tail of the one in front. Dry branches cracked under their hooves, and the forest boomed; but they, gleaming red in the sun, headed for the swamp, where it was safe and pleasant for them at night.
At last the afterglow blazed in the sky, making the pine tops seem to burn like fire, and gradually everything began to quiet down. The forest was going to sleep. Darkness rose from the earth and climbed upward toward the luminous afterglow, which at last began to fade, darken, turn black, and die out.
"Now, until the wolves howl, it will be quiet," thought Zbyszko.
He regretted, however, that he had not brought a crossbow; for he could easily have killed a boar or a moose. Meanwhile, from the direction of the swamp there still came muffled sounds for a time, like heavy groaning and whistling. Zbyszko looked toward that swamp with some mistrust, for a peasant named Radzik, who had once lived there in a mud hut, had disappeared with his family as if the earth had swallowed them. Some said outlaws had taken them, but there were people who later saw strange tracks near the hut—neither human nor animal—and they shook their heads over it, and even considered whether to bring a priest from Krześnia to bless the cottage. It never came to that, however, since no one wanted to live there, and the rain eventually washed away the hut—or rather the clay on its wattle walls—but the place never regained a good reputation. The beekeeper Wawrek, who had spent summer nights here in his hut, didn't mind it, but various things were said about him too.
Zbyszko, with his pitchfork and axe, was not afraid of wild animals—but he did think with some unease about unclean forces, and he was glad when those noises finally fell silent.
The last gleams vanished, and complete night fell. The wind died down; there was not even the usual rustle in the pine tops. Every now and then a cone fell here or there, producing a loud, clear sound against the general silence, but otherwise it was so quiet that Zbyszko could hear his own breathing.
He sat like that for a long time, thinking first about the bear that might come, and then about Danuśka. He remembered how he had grabbed her in his arms at the moment of parting from the Duchess, and how her tears had flowed down his cheek; he remembered her bright face, her flaxen little head, her cornflower wreaths, her singing, her red shoes with long toes that he had kissed at their departure—finally everything that had happened since they met. And such sorrow gripped him that she was not near, and such longing for her, that he became wholly lost in her, forgot that he was in the forest, lying in wait for a beast, and instead began to say to himself in his soul:
"I will go to you, for I cannot live without you."
And he felt that it was so—and that he must go to Mazovia, for otherwise he would waste away in Bogdaniec. He thought of Jurand and his strange opposition, so he considered that all the more he must go to find out what secret, what obstacles there were, and whether some challenge to a fight to the death could remove them. Finally it seemed to him that Danuśka was stretching out her hands and calling: "Come, Zbyszko, come!" How could he not go to her?
He was not asleep—but he saw her as clearly as if in a vision or a dream. There she was, little Danuśka riding beside the Duchess, strumming on her lute and singing, thinking of him. She thinks she will see him soon, and perhaps she even looks back to see if he is galloping after them—while he is here in the dark forest.
At that Zbyszko came to—and he came to not only because he remembered the dark forest, but also because behind him, from a distance, a rustling sound came. Then he gripped the pitchfork more tightly in his hands, pricked up his ears, and began to listen.
The rustling drew nearer and after a while became quite distinct. Dry twigs crunched under a cautious foot, dead leaves and bilberry bushes rustled... Something was approaching. Sometimes the rustling stopped, as if the beast was pausing at the trees, and then it became so quiet that Zbyszko's ears began to ring—then the footsteps sounded again, slow and cautious. Overall, there was something so wary about this approach that Zbyszko was filled with astonishment.
"The old one must be afraid of the dogs that were here at the hut," he said to himself; "but maybe it's a wolf that has caught my scent."
Meanwhile, the footsteps fell silent. Zbyszko, however, heard clearly that something had stopped about twenty or thirty paces behind him—and seemed to crouch down. He looked back once and twice—but although the tree trunks stood out quite clearly in the dusk, he could see nothing. There was no choice but to wait.
And he waited so long that astonishment seized him a second time. "A bear wouldn't come here to sleep under the beehive, and a wolf would have already scented me and wouldn't wait until morning."
And suddenly a chill went through him from head to foot. What if something "foul" had crawled out of the swamp and was coming up behind him? What if some slimy arms of a drowned corpse would suddenly grab him, or the green eyes of a vampire would stare into his face, or something would laugh horribly right behind him, or from behind a pine tree a livid head on spider legs would emerge? And he felt that under the iron coif his hair was beginning to stand on end.
But after a moment the rustling sounded in front of him—and this time even more distinct than before. Zbyszko breathed out. He supposed, of course, that the same "wonder" had gone around him and was now approaching from the front. But he preferred that. He gripped the pitchfork comfortably, rose quietly, and waited.
Suddenly he heard the rustle of pines overhead, felt a strong gust on his face blowing from the direction of the swamp, and at the same time the smell of bear reached his nostrils. There was now no doubt: it was a bear coming.
In an instant Zbyszko stopped being afraid, and bending his head forward, strained his eyes and ears. The footsteps grew heavy and distinct, the smell grew sharper; soon he heard panting and growling.
"As long as there aren't two of them!" thought Zbyszko.
But at that moment he saw before him the large, dark shape of the animal, which, coming with the wind, could not scent him until the last moment, all the more so because it was distracted by the smell of honey smeared on the tree trunks.
"Come on, old fellow!" cried Zbyszko, stepping out from under the pine.
The bear gave a short roar, as if frightened by the sudden apparition, but it was already too close to escape, so in an instant it rose on its hind legs, spreading its forelegs as if for an embrace.
That was exactly what Zbyszko had been waiting for: he gathered himself, leaped like lightning, and with all the strength of his mighty arms and his own weight, he drove the pitchfork into the beast's chest.
The whole forest now shook with a terrifying roar. The bear grasped the pitchfork with its paws, trying to pull it out, but the barbs at the tines held fast, and feeling the pain, it roared even more terribly. Wanting to reach Zbyszko, it leaned on the pitchfork and drove it deeper into itself.
Zbyszko, not knowing if the tines had gone deep enough, did not let go of the handle. Man and beast began to wrestle and struggle. The forest kept shaking with the roar, which echoed with fury and despair. Zbyszko could not get to his axe without first driving the other, sharpened end of the pitchfork into the ground, but the bear, seizing the handle with its paws, tossed it and Zbyszko about as if understanding what was at stake—and despite the pain caused by every movement of the deeply embedded tines, it would not let itself be "propped."
Thus the terrible struggle dragged on, and Zbyszko realized that his strength would eventually give out. He might also fall, and then he could die, so he gathered himself, strained his arms, spread his legs, arched his back like a bow to keep from falling backward, and in his frenzy began repeating through clenched teeth:
"My death or yours!..."
And finally such anger, such stubbornness seized him that truly he would rather have died himself at that moment than let the beast go.
At last, catching his foot on a pine root, he staggered and would have fallen if not for the fact that at that moment some dark figure stood before him—and a second pitchfork "propped" the beast, while at the same time a voice suddenly called out close to his ear:
"The axe!..."
Zbyszko, in the heat of the fight, did not pause for an instant to consider where the unexpected help had come from; instead, he seized the axe and struck a terrible blow. The pitchfork snapped once, broken by the weight and the final convulsion of the beast—which then collapsed onto the ground as if struck by lightning and began to snore. But it soon stopped.
Silence fell, broken only by Zbyszko's loud breathing; he leaned against a pine, for his legs were shaking under him. Only after a moment did he raise his head and look at the figure standing beside him—and he was frightened, thinking it might not be a human.
"Who are you?" he asked uneasily.
"Jagienka!" replied a thin female voice.
Zbyszko was speechless with astonishment, not believing his own eyes. But his doubts did not last long, for Jagienka's voice sounded again:
"I'll strike a fire..."
At once there came the clink of steel on flint, sparks began to fly, and by their flickering light Zbyszko saw a white forehead, dark brows, and the girl's lips, pursed forward as she blew on the ignited tinder. Only then did he realize that she had come into this forest to help him, that without her pitchfork things could have gone badly for him—and he felt such great gratitude toward her that, without thinking long, he kissed her hand.
And her tinder and steel fell to the ground.
"Stop it! What are you doing?" she began to repeat in a muffled voice.
He let go of her hand and said: "God reward you. I don't know what would have happened without you."
And Jagienka, crouching in the darkness to find the steel and tinder, began to explain: "I was worried about you, because Bezduch also went with a pitchfork and an axe—and the bear mauled him. God forbid, Macko would have been distressed, and he's barely breathing as it is... So I took the pitchfork and came."
"So you were the one who came around from behind the pine?"
"Yes."
"And I thought it was the 'evil one'."
"I was pretty scared too, because here near Radzik's swamp it's not good at night without a fire."
"Why didn't you call out?"
"Because I was afraid you'd send me away."
And having said that, she began to strike again, then placed a wisp of dry hemp tow on the tinder, which soon burst into bright flame.
"I have two splinters," she said, "and you gather some dry twigs quickly; we'll have a fire."
And indeed, after a moment a cheerful campfire blazed up, its light illuminating the huge, reddish-brown carcass of the bear lying in a pool of blood.
"Hey, a fearsome creature!" said Zbyszko with some boastfulness.
"But its head is almost completely split open! Oh Jesus!"
Having said that, she bent down and plunged her hand into the bear's fur to see how much fat it had, then straightened up with a cheerful face: "There'll be fat for about two years!"
"And the pitchfork is broken, look!"
"That's a problem, because what will I say at home?"
"What do you mean?"
"Because my father would never have let me go into the forest, so I had to wait until everyone went to bed."
After a moment she added: "Don't tell anyone I was here, so they won't gossip about me."
"But I'll walk you back to the house, because wolves might still attack you, and you don't have the pitchfork."
"Well—all right!"
And so they talked for a while by the cheerful glow of the fire, over the bear's carcass, both of them like some young forest creatures.
Zbyszko looked at Jagienka's graceful face, illuminated by the flame's glow, and said with involuntary astonishment: "There's probably no other girl like you in the world. You should go to war."
She looked into his eyes for a moment, then replied almost sadly: "I know... but don't make fun of me."