Page:Taras Bulba. A Tale of the Cossacks. 1916.djvu/132

126 which would immediately fade away, he opened his eyes fully and beheld a withered, emaciated face bending over him, and gazing straight into his eyes. The long, coal-black hair fell, uncoiffed, dishevelled, from beneath a dark veil which was thrown over the head; and the strange glitter of the eyes and the death-like brown tone of the face, which threw the sharply-cut features into relief, inclined him to believe that it was an apparition. His hand involuntarily grasped his arquebuse, and he exclaimed almost convulsively: "Who are you? If you are an evil spirit, begone from my sight! If you are a living being, you have chosen an unseemly time for your jest; I will kill you with a single shot!"

In answer to this, the apparition laid its finger upon its lips, and seemed to entreat silence. He dropped his hand, and began to scrutinise it more attentively. He recognised it as a woman from the long hair, the brown neck, the half-concealed bosom. But she was not a native of those regions; her whole face was swarthy, wasted by disease; her broad cheek-bones stood out prominently above her hollow cheeks; her narrow eyes rose upwards in an arch. The more he gazed at her features, the more he discerned in them that which was familiar. At last, unable to restrain himself longer, he said: "Tell me, who are you? It