CHAPTER XXIII.
When Zbyshko heard the unfortunate tidings, without even asking permission of the prince, he rushed to the stables, and commanded to saddle his horse. The Cheh, who, as a nobly born attendant, was with him in the supper hall, had barely time to go to their room and bring a warm fur robe; but he did not try to detain his young master; for having by nature strong sense, he knew that any endeavor to restrain him was useless, and that delay might be fatal. Mounting a second horse, he seized at the gate, from the keeper, a number of torches, and directly they were moving with the prince's people, whom the old Castellan led forward hastily. Beyond the gate darkness impenetrable surrounded them, but the storm seemed to have weakened. They might, perhaps, have gone astray immediately outside the town, had it not been for the man who had brought information, and who was leading them the more quickly and surely that he had with him a dog which knew the road.
On the open field the storm began to strike sharply in their faces, partly because they were going speedily. The highway was drifted in; in places there was so much snow that they were forced to go slowly; for the horses were in snow to their bellies. The prince's men lighted torches and lamps, and rode on amid the smoke and flame of torches which the wind blew as fiercely as if it wished to sweep those flames away from the pitchy sticks and carry them off into the fields and forests.
The road was a long one. They passed the villages nearer to Tsehanov and Nedzborz, then they turned toward Radzanov. Beyond Nedzborz, however, the storm subsided sensibly and grew weaker; the gusts of wind became fainter, and no longer carried whole clouds of snow with them. The sky became clearer. Some snow fell yet, but soon that stopped. Next a star glittered in a rift of the clouds. The horses snorted; the riders breathed more freely. The stars increased in number each moment, and the frost bit. After the expiration of a few "Our Fathers," the storm had ceased altogether.
