“Sit down, eat!” commanded Kmita.
Kmita had barely spoken when a dry sausage was crunching between the powerful jaws of Soroka. The two attendants looked on him with protruding eyes.
“Be off!” cried Kmita.
They sprang out with all breath through the door; out the knight walked with hasty steps up and down the room, not wishing to interrupt his faithful servant. But he, as often as he poured out a glass of vodka, looked sidewise at the colonel, fearing to find a frown; then he emptied the glass and turned toward the wall.
Kmita walked, walked; at last he began to speak to himself. “It cannot be otherwise!” muttered he; “it is needful to send him. I will give orders to tell her—No use, she will not believe! She will not read a letter, for she holds me a traitor and a dog. Let him not come in her way, but let him see and tell me what is taking place there.”
Then he said on a sudden: “Soroka!”
The soldier sprang up so quickly that he came near overturning the table, and straightened as straight as a string.
“According to order!”
“You are an honest man, and in need you are cunning. You will go on a long road, but not on a hungry one.”
“According to order!”
“To Tyltsa, on the Prussian border. There Panna Billevich is living in the castle of Boguslav Radzivill. You will learn if the prince is there, and have an eye on everything. Do not try to see Panna Billevich, but should a meeting happen of itself, tell her, and swear that I brought the king through the mountains, and that I am near his person. She will surely not give you credit; for the prince has defamed me, saying that I wished to attempt the life of the king—which is a lie befitting a dog.”
“According to order!”
“Do not try to see her, as I have said, for she will not believe you. But if you meet by chance, tell her what you know. Look at everything, and listen! But take care of yourself, for if the prince is there and recognizes you, or if anyone from his court recognizes you, you will be impaled on a stake. I would send old Kyemlich, but he is in the other world, slain in the pass, and his sons are too dull. They will go with me. Have you been in Tyltsa?”
“I have not, your grace.”
“You will go to Shchuchyn, thence along the Prussian boundary to Tyltsa. Taurogi is twenty miles distant from Tyltsa and opposite, on our side. Stay in Taurogi till you have seen everything, then come to me. You will find me where I shall be. Ask for the Tartars and Pan Babinich. And now go to sleep with the Kyemliches. Tomorrow for the road.”
After these words, Soroka went out. Kmita did not lie down to sleep for a long time, but at last weariness overcame him; then he threw himself on the bed, and slept a stone sleep.
Next morning he rose greatly refreshed and stronger than the day before. The whole court was already on foot, and the usual activity had begun. Kmita went first to the chancellery, for his commission and safe-conduct; he visited Suba Gazi Bey, chief of the Khan’s embassy in Lvoff, and had a long conversation with him.
During that conversation Pan Andrei put his hand twice in his purse; so that when he was going out Suba Gazi Bey changed caps with him, gave him a baton of green feathers and some yards of an equally green cord of silk.
Armed in this fashion, Pan Andrei returned to the king, who had just come from Mass; then the young man fell once more at the knees of the sovereign; after that he went, together with the Kyemliches and his attendants, directly to the place where Akbah Ulan was quartered with his chambul.
At sight of him the old Tartar put his hand to his forehead, his mouth, and his breast; but learning who Kmita was and why he had come, he grew severe at once; his face became gloomy, and was veiled with haughtiness.
“And the king has sent you to me as a guide,” said he to Kmita, in broken Russian; “you will show me the road, though I should be able to go myself wherever it is needed, and you are young and inexperienced.”
“He indicates in advance what I am to be,” thought Kmita, “but I will be polite to him as long as I can.” Then he said aloud: “Akbah Ulan, the king has sent me here as a chief, not as a guide. And I tell you this, that you will do better not to oppose the will of his grace.”
“The Khan makes appointments over the Tartars, not the king,” answered Akbah Ulan.
“Akbah Ulan,” repeated Kmita, with emphasis, “the Khan has made a present of thee to the king, as he would a dog or a falcon; therefore show no disrespect to him, lest thou be tied like a dog with a rope.”
“Allah!” cried the astonished Tartar.
“Hei! have a care that thou anger me not!” said Kmita.
Akbah Ulan’s eyes became bloodshot. For a time he could not utter a word; the veins on his neck were swollen, his hands sought his dagger.
“I’ll bite, I’ll bite!” said he, with stifled voice.
But Pan Andrei, though he had promised to be polite, had had enough, for by nature he was very excitable. In one moment therefore something struck him as if a serpent had stung; he seized the Tartar by the thin beard with his whole hand, and pushing back his head as if he wished to show him something on the ceiling, he began to
