In another hall a table was set for inferior nobles, and there were large barracks for peasants, for all had to be joyful on the day of the king’s coming.
At the tables there was no other conversation but touching the royal return, and the terrible adventures which had met them on the road, in which the hand of God had preserved the king. Yan Kazimir himself described the battle in the pass, and praised the cavalier who had held back the first Swedish onset.
“And how is he?” asked he of the marshal.
“The physician does not leave him, and guarantees his life; and besides, maidens and ladies in waiting have taken him in care, and surely they will not let the soul go from the body, for the body is shapely and young!” answered the marshal, joyously.
“Praise be to God!” cried the king. “I heard from his lips something which I shall not repeat to you, for it seems to me that I heard incorrectly, or that he said it in delirium; but should it come true you will be astonished.”
“If he has said nothing which might make your Royal Grace gloomy.”
“Nothing whatever of that nature,” said the king; “it has comforted us beyond measure, for it seems that even those whom we had reason to hold our greatest enemies are ready to spill their blood for us if need be.”
“Gracious Lord!” cried the marshal, “the time of reform has come; but under this roof your Royal Grace is among persons who have never sinned even in thought against majesty.”
“True, true!” answered the king, “and you, Lord Marshal, are in the first rank.”
“I am a poor servant of your Royal Grace.”
At table the noise grew greater. Gradually they began to speak of political combinations; of aid from the emperor, hitherto looked for in vain; of Tartar assistance, and of the coming war with the Swedes. Fresh rejoicing set in when the marshal stated that the envoy sent by him to the Khan had returned just a couple of days before, and reported that forty thousand of the horde were in readiness, and perhaps even a hundred thousand, as soon as the king would reach Lvoff and conclude a treaty with the Khan. The same envoy had reported that the Cossacks through fear of the Tartars had returned to obedience.
“You have thought of everything,” said the king, “in such fashion that we could not have thought it out better ourselves.” Then he seized his glass and said: “To the health of our host and friend, the marshal of the kingdom!”
“Impossible, Gracious Lord!” cried the marshal; “no man’s health can be drunk here before the health of your Royal Grace.”
All restrained their half-raised goblets; but Lyubomirski, filled with delight, perspiring, beckoned to his chief butler.
At this sign the servants who were swarming through the hall rushed to pour out Malvoisie again, taken with gilded dippers from kegs of pure silver. Pleasure increased still more, and all were waiting for the toast of the marshal.
The chief butler brought now two goblets of Venetian crystal of such marvellous work that they might pass for the eighth wonder of the world. The crystal, bored and polished to thinness during whole years, perhaps, cast real diamond light. On the setting great artists of Italy had labored. The base of each goblet was gold, carved in small figures representing the entrance of a conqueror to the Capitol. The conqueror rode in a chariot of gold on a street paved with pearls. Behind him followed captives with bound hands; with them a king, in a turban formed of one emerald; farther followed legionaries with eagles and ensigns. More than fifty small figures found room on each base—figures as high as a hazelnut, but made so marvellously that the features of the faces and the feelings of each one could be distinguished, the pride of the victors, the grief of the vanquished. The base was bound to the goblet with golden filigree, fine as hair bent with wondrous art into grape leaves, clusters, and various flowers. Those filigree were wound around the crystal, and joining at the top in one ring formed the edge of the goblet, which was set with stones in seven colors.
The head butler gave one such goblet to the king and the other to the marshal, both filled with Malvoisie. All rose from their seats; the marshal raised the goblet, and cried with all the voice in his breast—
“Vivat Yoannes Casimirus Rex!”
“Vivat! vivat! vivat!”
At that moment the guns thundered again so that the walls of the castle were trembling. The nobles feasting in the second hall came with their goblets; the marshal wished to make an oration, but could not, for his words were lost in the endless shouts: “Vivat! vivat! vivat!”
Such joy seized the marshal, such ecstasy, that wildness was gleaming in his eyes, and emptying his goblet he shouted so, that he was heard even in the universal tumult—
“Ego ultimus (I am the last)!”
Then he struck the priceless goblet on his own head with such force that the crystal sprang into a hundred fragments, which fell with a rattle on the floor, and the head of the magnate was covered with blood. All were astonished, and the king said—
“Lord Marshal, we regret not the goblet, but the head which we value so greatly.”
“Treasures and jewels are nothing to me,” cried the marshal, “when I have the honor of receiving your Royal Grace in my house. Vivat Yoannes Casimirus Rex!”
Here the butler gave him another goblet.
“Vivat! vivat!” shouted the guests without ceasing. The sound of broken glass was mingled with the shout. Only the bishops did not follow the example of
