Here Prince Boguslav laughed, showing teeth as white as ivory. But this conversation was not to the taste of Yanush; he began again therefore on public affairs.
“I sent letters to the King of Sweden, and to many others of our dignitaries. You must have received a letter through Kmita.”
“But wait! I was coming to that matter. What is your idea of Kmita?”
“He is hotheaded, wild, dangerous, and cannot endure restraint; but he is one of those rare men who serve us in good faith.”
“Surely,” answered Boguslav; “and he came near earning the kingdom of heaven for me.”
“How is that?” asked Yanush, with alarm.
“They say, lord brother, that if your bile is stirred suffocation results. Promise me to listen with patience and quietly, and I will tell something of your Kmita, from which you will know him better than you have up to this moment.”
“Well, I will be patient, only begin.”
“A miracle of God saved me from the hands of that incarnate devil,” said Boguslav; and he began to relate all that had happened in Pilvishki.
It was no smaller miracle that Prince Yanush did not have an attack of asthma, but it might be thought that apoplexy would strike him. He trembled all over, he gnashed his teeth, he covered his eyes with his hand; at last he cried with a hoarse voice—
“Is that true? Very well! He has forgotten that his little wench is in my hands—”
“Restrain yourself, for God’s sake! Hear on. I acquitted myself with him as beseems a cavalier, and if I have not noted this adventure in my diary, and do not boast of it, I refrain because ’tis a shame that I let myself be tricked by that clown, as if I were a child—I, of whom Mazarin said that in intrigue and adroitness there was not my equal in the whole court of France. But no more of this! I thought at first that I had killed your Kmita; now I have proof in my hands that he has slipped away.”
“That is nothing! We will find him! We will dig him out! We will get him, even from under the earth! Meanwhile I will give him a sorer blow than if I were to flay him alive.”
“You will give him no blow, but only injure your own health. Listen! in coming hither I noticed some low fellow on a pied horse, who held himself at no great distance from my carriage. I noticed him specially because his horse was pied, and I gave the order at last to summon him. ‘Where art thou going?’ ‘To Kyedani.’ ‘What art thou taking?’ ‘A letter to the prince voevoda.’ I ordered him to give the letter, and as there are no secrets between us I read it. Here it is!”
Then he gave Prince Yanush Kmita’s letter, written from the forest at the time when he was setting out with the Kyemliches.
The prince glanced over the letter, and crushing it with rage, cried—
“True! in God’s name, true! He has my letters, and in them are things which may make the King of Sweden himself suspicious, nay more, give him mortal offence.”
Here choking seized him, and the expected attack came on. His mouth opened widely, and he gasped quickly after air; his hands tore the clothing near his throat. Prince Boguslav, seeing this, clapped his hands, and when the servants ran in, he said—
“Save the prince your lord, and when he recovers breath beg him to come to my chamber; meanwhile I will rest a little.” And he went out.
Two hours later, Yanush, with bloodshot eyes, hanging lids, and a blue face, knocked at Prince Boguslav’s chamber. Boguslav received him lying in bed, his face rubbed with milk of almonds, which was to enhance the softness and freshness of his skin. Without a wig on his head, without the colors on his face, and with unblackened brows, he seemed much older than in full dress; but Prince Yanush paid no heed to that.
“I have come to the conclusion,” said he, “that Kmita will not publish those letters, for if he should he would by that act write the sentence of death for the maiden. He understands well that only by keeping them does he hold me; but I cannot pour out my vengeance, and that gnaws me, as if I were carrying about a mad dog in my breast.”
“Still, it will be necessary to get those letters,” said Boguslav.
“But quo modo (in what way)?”
“Some adroit man must be sent after him, to enter into friendship and at a given opportunity seize the letters and punch Kmita with a knife. It is necessary to offer a great reward.”
“Who here would undertake that deed?”
“If it were only in Paris, or even in Germany, I could find a hundred volunteers in one day, but in this country such wares are not found.”
“And one of our own people is needed, for he would be on his guard against a stranger.”
“It seems to me that I can find someone in Prussia.”
“Oh, if he could be taken alive and brought to my hands, I would pay him once for all. I say that the insolence of that man passes every measure. I sent him away because he enraged me, for he would spring at my throat for any reason, just like a cat; he hurled at me his own wishes in everything. A hundred times lacking little had I the order just—just in my mouth to shoot him; but I could not, I could not.”
“Tell me, is he really a relative of ours?”
“He is a relative of the Kishkis, and through the Kishkis of us.”
“In his fashion he is a devil, and an opponent dangerous in the highest degree.”
“He? You might command him to go to Tsargrad27 and pull the Sultan from his throne, or tear out the beard of the King of Sweden and bring it to
