“My horse has stumbled!“ shouted Zagloba.
“That is nothing!“ cried Volodyovski
But through his head that moment there flew like thunderbolts the questions: “What will happen if the horses do not hold out? What will happen if one of them falls?“ They were valiant Tartar steeds of iron endurance, but they had come already from Ploskiri, resting but little on that wild flight from the town to the first forest. They might, it is true, take the led horses, but they too were tired. “What is to be done?“ thought Volodyovski; and his heart throbbed with alarm,--perhaps for the first time in his life,--not for himself, but for Helena, whom during that long journey he had come to love as his own sister. And he knew too that the Tartars when they had once begun pursuit would not relinquish it very
