Владимир Короткевич - King Stach's Wild Hunt

The villain had found the plan in the archive and had hidden it.

There turned out to be some more interesting things in the plan. In the outer wall of the castle a space appeared, a narrow passage and three small cells of some kind were indicated. And where I had once torn off a board in the boarded up room.

I swore as never before in my life. Many unpleasant things might have been avoided if I had thoroughly knocked at the walls covered with panels. But it wasn't too late even now. I grabbed the candle, glanced at the clock (half past ten) and ran as quickly as I could to my corridor.

I knocked half an hour probably, before I hit on a place which answered to my knocking with a resonant sound as if I were knocking on the bottom of a barrel. I looked for a place in the panel that I could catch onto and tear off at least a part of it, but in vain. Then I saw some light scratches on it made with some sharp thing. Therefore I got a folding-knife and began to prod it into the hardly noticeable cracks between the panels. With a blade of the knife I managed quite soon to find something that gave way. I pressed harder — the panel began to squeak and to turn round slowly, forming a narrow slit. I looked at the reverse side of the panel at the place in which I had stuck the knife. A hollow board was there and to open the manhole from the inside was impossible. I had gone down about 15 steps, but the door behind my back began to squeak pitifully, and I hurried upstairs, and managed just in time to hold it back with my foot so that it shouldn't shut. To remain in a rat-hole alone under the threat of sitting there till Doomsday with a candle-end was foolhardy.

Therefore I left the door half-open, put a handkerchief near the axle and myself sat down not far away on the floor, with my revolver on my knees. I had to blow out the candle, for its light might frighten the mysterious creature if it had thought of creeping out of its hiding-place. The candle burning round the corner in the corridor all night, even though dimly, still gave some light, and through the window an indefinite grey light also poured in.

I don't know how long I sat there with my chin buried in my knees. It was about twelve when drowsiness began to overtake me, my eyes became glued together. No matter how I fought sleep, I nodded: the past sleepless nights were telling on me. In an instant consciousness slipped away and I fell into a kind of a dark, stuffy abyss.

Have you ever tried to sleep sitting, your back leaning against a wall or a tree? Try it. You will become convinced that the sensation of falling was left us from our forefather — the monkey: for him it had been necessary to prevent his falling off the tree. And, sitting against the tree, you will, in your sleep, fall very often, awakening and again falling asleep. Finally, wonderful dreams overcome your soul, a million years of man's existence will disappear, and it will seem to you that under the tree a prehistoric mammoth is going to a watering-place and the eyes of a cave bear are burning from under a cliff.

In approximately such a state was I. Dreams... Dreams... It seemed to me I was sitting in a tree and I was afraid to let myself down, for a pithecanthrope was stealthily making his way along the ground under me. And it was night and wolves were moaning behind the trees. At that very moment I “fell” and opened my eyes.

In the semi-darkness a strange creature was moving straight in front of me. Green, old-fashioned clothes, covered with dust and cobwebs, a long head stretching out as a bean seed, eyelids resembling a frog's and lowered in thought, almost covering its eyes, and hands hanging down, and long, long fingers almost touching the floor.

The Little Man of Marsh Firs moved past and floated on farther, while I followed after him with my revolver. He opened a window, then another one and crept inside. I stuck my head out after him and saw him walking with the ease of a monkey along a narrow ledge the width of three fingers! Here and there he nipped off a few buds from the branches of a lime-tree touching the wall, and champed them. With one hand he helped himself to move on. Then he crept into the corridor again, closed the window and slowly moved ahead somewhere. A fearful sight was this inhuman creature! Once it seemed to me that I heard a kind of mumbling. The Little Man beat himself on his forehead and was lost in the dark where the light of the distant candle did not reach. I hurried after him, because I was afraid he would disappear. When I found myself in the dark I saw two fiery eyes that looked from around the corner and were inexplicably threatening.

I rushed to the Little Man, but he began to groan grievously and wandered off somewhere, shaking on his little legs. Turning around, he fixed his gaze on me threatening me with a long finger. For a moment I was dumbfounded, but collected myself, caught up with the Little Man and grabbed him by the shoulders. And my heart began to beat happily, for it was not a ghost.

When I dragged the creature out into the light, it put a finger into its mouth and pronounced in a squeaking voice:

“Aam-aam!”

“Who are you?” shaking him.

And the Little Man, the former ghost, answered — his answer a learned-by-heart one:

“I'm Bazyl. I'm Bazyl.”

And suddenly a slyness which exists even in idiots lit up his eyes:

“I saw you. Ha-ha! I was sitting under the table — under the table, my brother was feeding me. And you suddenly ׮”

And again he champed with that large mouth of his reaching to his ears.

I began to understand everything. Two villains, the ringleader of the Wild Hunt and Bierman, both pursuing one and the same aim — to get rid of Janoŭskaja — hit upon, as a matter of fact, one and the same idea. Bierman, knowing that he is a relative of Janoŭskaja, arrived at Marsh Firs and found the listening-in channels and passages in the walls. After that he secretly went to town, abandoned his mother to her fate, took back with him his brother who avoided people not because he preferred being alone, — he was simply a hopeless idiot. Not for nothing had his bad behaviour surprised the people in the club (Bierman had, of course, brought not his brother to the club but some chance person). Bierman roomed together with his brother at Marsh Firs, taking advantage of the fact that nobody ever came to see him. And he ordered his brother to sit quietly. Once when I happened to come in on them during feeding time the Little Man, it turns out, was under the table, and had I reached out my hand, I could have grabbed him.

During the night Bierman would lead him out into the secret passages where he walked about, as a result of which in the listening-in channels sounds were created that were heard by all the people living in the house.

From time to time Bierman let the Little Man out into the corridor: in that case he'd put on him an old-fashioned costume especially made for such occasions. While his little brother took his walk, Bierman waited for him at the open door of the passage, for the Little Man couldn't open it himself. Sometimes he allowed him to take a walk in the open air. With the ease of a monkey, or rather with that of a spider, he ran along the ledges of the building, glancing into the windows, and in case of an alarm, disappeared like lightning behind the numerous corners of the castle.

It was very easy for the Little Man to do all this, nothing easier, because his cave mind completely lacked the instinct of self-preservation. He walked along a ledge as calmly as we do when we walk along a railway track for fun.

It was during one such walk of his for an airing that his meeting with me took place. What then happened afterwards? Likol had sent me a letter in which, in order to call me out of the house, he mentioned that he had information about the Little Man. Bierman, who had been watching me closely of late, read the letter and hastened to the meeting-place hoping to come to an agreement with the author of the letter. There he was taken for me and the tragedy occurred, a tragedy to which I had become a belated witness.