The hounds caught a scent. Their clamor awoke. In the next hours the men took a stag, a wolf, a brace of badger; a wild sow eluded them, but they remained well content. Reaching the lake, they startled a flock of swans, let fly their arrows, brought down three. They thought they might return home.
That happened which God allowed.
Another stag trod onto the shore, a hundred yards from them.
Late afternoon sunbeams washed aureate and blue-shadowed across him, for he was white, well-nigh the stature of an elk. Already his growing antlers made a tree athwart heaven.
“By every saint!” shouted Mihajlo, and soared to his feet. A pair of shafts missed the deer, which waited until the men were in the saddle again. Thereafter he fled them. Yet he did not seek thick brush where horses could not follow. He stayed on the trails, ever glimmering in dimness. Vainly, the chase hallooed after. Back and forth he led his pursuers, up and down, round and about, while time waned. The mounts were blown, the dogs gasping, when at last he came back to the lake.
Timber gloomed above its gleam. The sun had sunk and left only a smear of sulfur on western blue. Eastward was purple, swiftly darkening; a star trembled forth. Mist lay in streamers. Bats flitted on high. It was turning cold. Silence filled everything that was.
Like a patch of fog, the crowned animal shivered and was gone.
Mihajlo choked on an oath. Luka crossed himself over and over, as did the servants. Both peasants sprang from their stirrups, down onto their knees, whipped off their hats, and prayed aloud.
“We have been lured,” mumbled Sisko, the senior of them.
“By who and for what?”
“Let us begone, in God’s name,” begged his friend Drazha.
“No, hold.” Mihajlo rallied his courage. “Our steeds must rest.
We could kill them if we push right on. You know that.”
“Would you, you spend the night here?” stammered Luka.
“An hour or two, till the moon rises and we can find our way,”
Mihajlo said.
An attendant of his stared across the quicksilver above the depths, at a ragged murk of foliage beyond, and protested, “Sir, this is no place for Christians. Old heathen things are abroad. That was no buck we hunted, it was the very wind, and now it has vanished to wherever the wind goes. Why?”
“What, and you a city man?” Mihajlo gibed. “Our senses failed us, that’s all. Not surprising, weary as we are.” He peered through the dusk at their faces. “There is no place on earth which is not for Christians, if they have faith,” he said. “Come, let us call on our saints. How then can devils harm us?”
Weakly heartened, they dismounted if they had not already done so, prayed together, unsaddled their beasts, began to rub these down with the cloths. More stars appeared in deepening twilight.
Mihajlo’s laughter rattled through the stillness. “Do you see?
We had no need of fear.”
“No, never,” sang a girl’s voice. “Is it really you, my dearest?”
He turned and beheld her. Though he and his companions had
become blurs among shadows, she stood forth almost clearly, where she came out of the reeds onto land. Her nakedness and the unbound hair were that pale, her eyes that huge and bright. She neared him, arms held wide.
“Jesus and Mary, save us,” moaned Drazha at his back. “It is the vilja.”
“Mihajlo,” she cried low, “Mihajlo, forgive me, I am trying to remember, I truly am.”
Somehow he stood his ground, there on the wet lakeside in the gloaming. “Who are you?” he uttered through the earthquake in his breast. “What do you want of me?”
“The vilja,” Sisko quavered. “Demon, ghost. Pray it away, men, before it draws us down to its watery hell.”
Mihajlo traced the Cross, stiffened his knees, confronted the
being and commanded, “In the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit-“
Before he could say, “-begone !” she was so close to him
that he could make out the sweetly carven features. “Mihajlo,”
she was pleading, “is that you? I’m sorry if I hurt you,