When Kmita’s attendants drove the beasts up, in accordance with the commandant’s wish, he looked at them carefully and said—
“I will buy these. From another I would have taken them without pay; but since you are from Prussia, I will not harm you.”
Kmita seemed somewhat confused when it came to selling, for by this the reason for going farther was lost, and he would have to go back to Prussia. He asked therefore a price so high that it was almost twice the real value of the horses. Beyond expectation the officer was neither angry, nor did he haggle about the price.
“Agreed!” said he. “Drive the horses into the shed, and I will bring you the pay at once.”
The Kyemliches were glad in their hearts, but Pan Andrei fell into anger and began to curse. Still there was no way but to drive in the horses. If they refused, they would be suspected at once of trading only in appearance.
Meanwhile the officer came back, and gave Kmita a piece of paper with writing.
“What is this?” asked Pan Andrei.
“Money or the same as money—an order.”
“And where will they pay me?”
“At headquarters!”
“Where are headquarters?”
“In Warsaw,” said the officer, laughing maliciously.
“We sell only for ready money.”
“How’s that, what’s that, oh, gates of heaven?” began old Kyemlich, groaning.
Kmita turned, and looking at him threateningly, said—
“For me the word of the commandant is the same as ready money. I will go willingly to Warsaw, for there I can buy honest goods from the Armenians, for which I shall be well paid in Prussia.”
Then, when the officer walked away, Pan Andrei said, to comfort Kyemlich—
“Quiet, you rogue! These orders are the best passes; we can go to Krakow with our complaints, for they will not pay us. It is easier to press cheese out of a stone than money out of the Swedes. But this is just playing into my hand. This breeches fellow thinks that he has tricked me, but he knows not what service he has rendered. I’ll pay you out of my own pocket for the horses; you will be at no loss.”
The old man recovered himself, and it was only from habit that he did not cease yet for a while to complain—
“They have plundered us, brought us to poverty!”
But Pan Andrei was glad to find the road open before him, for he foresaw that the Swedes would not pay for the horses in Warsaw, and in all likelihood they would pay nowhere—hence he would be able to go on continually as it were seeking for justice, even to the Swedish king, who was at Krakow occupied with the siege of the ancient capital.
Meanwhile Kmita resolved to pass the night in Pjasnysh to give his horses rest, and without changing his assumed name to throw aside his exterior of a poor noble. He saw that all despised a poor horse-dealer, that anyone might attack him more readily and have less fear to answer for injustice to an insignificant man. It was more difficult in that dress to have approach to important nobles, and therefore more difficult to discover what each one was thinking.
He procured therefore clothing answering to his station and his birth, and went to an inn so as to talk with his brother nobles. But he was not rejoiced at what he heard. In the taverns and public houses the nobles drank to the health of the King of Sweden, and to the success of the protector, struck glasses with the Swedish officers, laughed at the jokes which these officers permitted themselves to make at the expense of Yan Kazimir and Charnyetski.
Fear for their own lives and property had debased people to such a degree that they were affable to the invaders, and hurried to keep up their good humor. Still even that debasement had its limits. The nobles allowed themselves, their king, the hetmans, and Pan Charnyetski to be ridiculed, but not their religion; and when a certain Swedish captain declared that the Lutheran faith was as good as the Catholic, Pan Grabkovski, sitting near him, not being able to endure that blasphemy, struck him on the temple with a hatchet, and taking advantage of the uproar, slipped out of the public house and vanished in the crowd.
They fell to pursuing him, but news came which turned attention in another direction. Couriers arrived with news that Krakow had surrendered, that Pan Charnyetski was in captivity, and that the last barrier to Swedish dominion was swept away.
The nobles were dumb at the first moment, but the Swedes began to rejoice and cry “Vivat.” In the church of the Holy Ghost, in the church of the Bernardines, and in the cloister of Bernardine nuns, recently erected by Pani Muskovski, it was ordered to ring the bells. The infantry and cavalry came out on the square, from the breweries and cloth-shearing mills, in battle-array, and began to fire from cannons and muskets. Then they rolled out barrels of gorailka, mead, and beer for the army and the citizens; they burned pitch-barrels and feasted till late at night. The Swedes dragged out the inhabitants from the houses to dance with them, to rejoice and frolic; and together with throngs of soldiers straggled along nobles who drank with the cavalry, and were forced to feign joy at the fall of Krakow and the defeat of Charnyetski.
Disgust carried away Kmita, and he took refuge early in his quarters outside the town, but he could not sleep. A fever tormented him, and doubts besieged his soul. Had he not turned from the road too late, when the whole country was in the hands of the Swedes? It came into his head that all was lost now, and the Commonwealth would never rise from its fall.
“This is not a mere
