“What relative are you of mine?”
“I am, for there are two stocks of Kovalskis—they who use the seal of Vyerush and have a goat painted on their shield, with upraised hind leg; and they who have on their shield the ship in which their ancestor Kovalski sailed from England across the sea to Poland; and these are my relatives, through my grandmother, and this is why I, too, have the ship on my shield.”
“As God lives! you are my relative.”
“Are you a Korab (ship)?”
“A Korab.”
“My own blood, as God is dear to me!” cried Zagloba. “It is lucky that we have met, for in very truth I have come here to Lithuania to see the Kovalskis; and though I am in bonds while you are on horseback and in freedom I would gladly embrace you, for what is one’s own is one’s own.”
“How can I help you? They commanded me to take you to Birji; I will take you. Blood is blood, but service is service.”
“Call me Uncle,” said Zagloba.
“Here is gorailka for you, Uncle,” said Kovalski; “I can do that much.”
Zagloba took the flask gladly, and drank to his liking. Soon a pleasant warmth spread through his members. It began to grow clear in his brain, and his mind became bright.
“Come down from the horse,” said he to Kovalski, “and sit here a short time in the wagon; let us talk, for I should like to have you say something about our family. I respect service, but this too is permitted.”
Kovalski did not answer for a while.
“This was not forbidden,” said he, at last.
Soon after he was sitting at the side of Zagloba, and stretched himself gladly on the straw with which the wagon was filled.
Zagloba embraced him heartily.
“How is the health of thy old father?—God help me—I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Roh, also.”
“That’s right, that’s right. Roh begat Roh—that is according to command. You must call your son Roh as well, so that every hoopoo may have his topknot. But are you married?”
“Of course! I am Kovalski, and here is Pani Kovalski; I don’t want any other.”
So saying, the young officer raised to the eyes of Zagloba the hilt of a heavy dragoon sabre, and repeated, “I don’t want any other.”
“Proper!” said Zagloba. “Roh, son of Roh, you are greatly pleasing to me. A soldier is best accommodated when he has no wife save such a one, and I will say more—she will be a widow before you will be a widower. The only pity is that you cannot have young Rohs by her, for I see that you are a keen cavalier, and it would be a sin were such a stock to die out.”
“Oh, no fear of that!” said Kovalski; “there are six brothers of us.”
“And all Rohs?”
“Does Uncle know that if not the first, then the second, has to be Roh?—for Roh is our special patron.”
“Let us drink again.”
“Very well.”
Zagloba raised the bottle; he did not drink all, however, but gave it to the officer and said, “To the bottom, to the bottom! It is a pity that I cannot see you,” continued he. “The night is so dark that you might hit a man in the face, you would not know your own fingers by sight. But hear me, Roh, where was that army going from Kyedani when we drove out?”
“Against the insurgents.”
“The Most High God knows who is insurgent—you or they.”
“I an insurgent? How could that be? I do what my hetman commands.”
“But the hetman does not do what the king commands, for surely the king did not command him to join the Swedes. Would you not rather slay the Swedes than give me, your relative, into their hands?”
“I might; but for every command there is obedience.”
“And Pani Kovalski would rather slay Swedes; I know her. Speaking between us, the hetman has rebelled against the king and the country. Don’t say this to anyone, but it is so; and those who serve him are rebels too.”
“It is not proper for me to hear this. The hetman has his superior, and I have mine; what is his own belongs to the hetman, and God would punish me if I were to oppose him. That is an unheard of thing.”
“You speak honestly; but think, Roh, if you were to happen into the hands of those insurgents, I should be free, and it would be no fault of yours, for nec Hercules contra plures!—I do not know where those squadrons are, but you must know, and you see we might turn toward them a little.”
“How is that?”
“As if we went by chance to them? It would not be your fault if they rescued us. You would not have me on your conscience—and to have a relative on a man’s conscience, believe me, is a terrible burden.”
“Oh Uncle, what are you saying! As God lives, I will leave the wagon and sit on my horse. It is not I who will have uncle on my conscience, but the hetman. While I live, nothing will come of this talk.”
“Nothing is nothing!” said Zagloba; “I prefer that you speak sincerely, though I was your uncle before Radzivill was your hetman. And do you know, Roh, what an uncle is?”
“An uncle is an uncle.”
“You have calculated very adroitly; but when a man has no father, the Scriptures say that he must obey his uncle. The power of an uncle is as that of a father, which it is a sin to resist. For consider even this, that whoever marries may easily become a father; but in your uncle flows the same blood as in your mother. I am not in truth the brother of your mother, but my grandmother must have been your grandmother’s aunt. Know then that the authority of several generations rests in me; for like everything else in the world we are mortal, therefore authority passes from one of us to another, and neither the hetman nor the king
