“There is nothing in her head but arms, horses, and war. Once she broke out of the house to hunt ducks with a gun. She crept in somewhere among the rushes, was looking ahead of her, the reeds began to open—what did she see? The head of a Tartar stealing along through the reeds to the village. Another woman would have been terrified, and woe to her if she had not fired quickly; the Tartar dropped into the water. Just imagine, she laid him out on the spot; and with what? With duck-shot.”
Here the lady began to shake again and laugh at the mishap of the Tartar; then she added, “And to tell the truth, she saved us all, for a whole chambul was advancing; but as she came and gave the alarm, we had time to escape to the woods with the servants. With us it is always so!”
Zagloba’s face was cover
