“Cavalier,” interrupted Boguslav, coldly, “you have me in your hand, you can kill me; but I beg one thing, do not bore me.”
Both were silent.
However, it appeared plainly, from the words of Kmita, that the soldier had been able to draw out the naked truth from the diplomat, and that the prince was guilty of great incautiousness, of a great error in betraying his most secret plans and those of the hetman. This pricked his vanity; therefore, not caring to hide his ill-humor, he said—
“Do not ascribe it to your own wit merely, Pan Kmita, that you got the truth from me. I spoke openly, for I thought the prince voevoda knew people better, and had sent a man worthy of confidence.”
“The prince voevoda sent a man worthy of confidence,” answered Kmita, “but you have lost him. Henceforth only scoundrels will serve you.”
“If the way in which you seized me was not scoundrelly, then may the sword grow to my hand in the first battle.”
“It was a stratagem! I learned it in a hard school. You wish, your highness, to know Kmita. Here he is! I shall not go with empty hands to our gracious lord.”
“And you think that a hair of my head will fall from the hand of Yan Kazimir?”
“That is a question for the judges, not for me.”
Suddenly Kmita reined in his horse: “But the letter of the prince voevoda—have you that letter on your person?”
“If I had, I would not give it. The letter remained in Pilvishki.”
“Search him!” cried Kmita.
The soldiers seized the prince again by the arms. Soroka began to search his pockets. After a while he found the letter.
“Here is one document against you and your works,” said Pan Andrei, taking the letter. “The King of Poland will know from it what you have in view; the Swedish King will know too, that although now you are serving him, the prince voevoda reserves to himself freedom to withdraw if the Swedish foot stumbles. All your treasons will come out, all your machinations. But I have, besides, other letters—to the King of Sweden, to Wittemberg, to Radzeyovski. You are great and powerful; still I am not sure that it will not be too narrow for you in this Commonwealth, when both kings will prepare a recompense worthy of your treasons.”
Prince Boguslav’s eyes gleamed with ill-omened light, but after a while he mastered his anger and said—
“Well, Cavalier! For life or death between us! We have met! You may cause us trouble and much evil, but I say this: No man has dared hitherto to do in this country what you have done. Woe be to you and to yours!”
“I have a sabre to defend myself, and I have something to redeem my own with,” answered Kmita.
“You have me as a hostage,” said the prince.
And in spite of all his anger he breathed calmly; he understood one thing at this moment, that in no case was his life threatened—that his person was too much needed by Kmita.
Then they went again at a trot, and after an hour’s ride they saw two horsemen, each of whom led a pair of packhorses. They were Kmita’s men sent in advance from Pilvishki.
“What is the matter?” asked Kmita.
“The horses are terribly tired, for we have not rested yet.”
“We shall rest right away!”
“There is a cabin at the turn, maybe ’tis a public house.”
“Let the sergeant push on to prepare oats. Public house or not, we must halt.”
“According to order, Commander.”
Soroka gave reins to the horses, and they followed him slowly. Kmita rode at one side of the prince, Lubyenyets at the other. Boguslav had become completely calm and quiet; he did not draw Pan Andrei into further conversation. He seemed to be exhausted by the journey, or by the position in which he found himself, and dropping his head somewhat on his breast, closed his eyes. Still from time to time he cast a side look now at Kmita, now at Lubyenyets, who held the reins of the horse, as if studying to discover who would be the easier to overturn so as to wrest himself free.
They approached the building situated on the roadside at a bulge of the forest. It was not a public house, but a forge and a wheelwright-shop, in which those going by the road stopped to shoe their horses and mend their wagons. Between the forge and the road there was a small open area, sparsely covered with trampled grass; fragments of wagons and broken wheels lay thrown here and there on that place, but there were no travellers. Soroka’s horses stood tied to a post. Soroka himself was talking before the forge to the blacksmith, a Tartar, and two of his assistants.
“We shall not have an overabundant repast,” said the prince; “there is nothing to be had here.”
“We have food and spirits with us,” answered Kmita.
“That is well! We shall need strength.”
They halted. Kmita thrust his pistol behind his belt, sprang from the saddle,
