“Hear me, son of a goat! Thou wouldst like to have no one above thee, so as to burn, rob, and slaughter! Thou wouldst have me as guide! Here is thy guide! thou hast a guide!” And thrusting him to the wall, he began to pound his head against a corner of it.
He let him go at last, completely stunned, but not looking for his knife now. Kmita, following the impulse of his hot blood, discovered the best method of convincing Oriental people accustomed to slavery; for in the pounded head of the Tartar, in spite of all the rage which was stifling him, the thought gleamed at once how powerful and commanding must that knight be who could act in this manner with him, Akbah Ulan; and with his bloody lips he repeated three times—
“Bagadyr (hero), Bagadyr, Bagadyr!”
Kmita meanwhile placed on his own head the cap of Suba Grazi, drew forth the green baton, which he had kept behind his belt of purpose till that moment, and said—
“Look at these, slave! and these!”
“Allah!” exclaimed the astonished Ulan.
“And here!” added Kmita, taking the cord from his pocket.
But Akbah Ulan was already lying at his feet, and striking the floor with his forehead.
An hour later the Tartars were marching out in a long line over the road from Lvoff to Vyelki Ochi; and Kmita, sitting on a valiant chestnut steed which the king had given him, drove along the chambul as a shepherd dog drives sheep. Akbah Ulan looked at the young hero with wonder and fear.
The Tartars, who were judges of warriors, divined at the first glance that under that leader there would be no lack of blood and plunder, and went willingly with singing and music.
And Kmita’s heart swelled within him when he looked at those forms, resembling beasts of the wilderness; for they were dressed in sheepskin and camel-skin coats with the wool outside. The wave of wild heads shook with the movements of the horses; he counted them, and was thinking how much he could undertake with that force.
“It is a peculiar body,” thought he, “and it seems to me as if I were leading a pack of wolves; and with such men precisely would it be possible to run through the whole Commonwealth, and trample all Prussia. Wait awhile, Prince Boguslav!”
Here boastful thoughts began to flow into his head, for he was inclined greatly to boastfulness.
“God has given man adroitness,” said he to himself; “yesterday I had only the two Kyemliches, but today four hundred horses are clattering behind me. Only let the dance begin; I shall have a thousand or two of such roisterers as my old comrades would not be ashamed of. Wait a while, Boguslav!”
But after a moment he added, to quiet his own conscience: “And I shall serve also the king and the country.”
He fell into excellent humor. This too pleased him greatly, that nobles, Jews, peasants, even large crowds of general militia, could not guard themselves from fear in the first moment at sight of his Tartars. And there was a fog, for the thaw had filled the air with a vapor. It happened then every little while that someone rode up near, and seeing all at once whom they had before them, cried out—
“The word is made flesh!”
“Jesus! Mary! Joseph!”
“The Tartars! the horde!”
But the Tartars passed peacefully the equipages, loaded wagons, herds of horses and travellers. It would have been different had the leader permitted, but they dared not undertake anything of their own will, for they had seen how at starting Akbah Ulan had held the stirrup of that leader.
Now Lvoff had vanished in the distance beyond the mist. The Tartars had ceased to sing, and the chambul moved slowly amid the clouds of steam rising from the horses. All at once the tramp of a horse was heard behind. In a moment two horsemen appeared. One of them was Pan Michael, the other was the tenant of Vansosh; both, passing the chambul, pushed straight to Kmita.
“Stop! stop!” cried the little knight.
Kmita held in his horse. “Is that you?”
Pan Michael reined in his horse. “With the forehead!” said he, “letters from the king: one to you, the other to the voevoda of Vityebsk.”
“I am going to Pan Charnyetski, not to Sapyeha.”
“But read the letter.”
Kmita broke the seal and read as follows:—
We learn through a courier just arrived from the voevoda of Vityebsk that he cannot march hither to Little Poland, and is turning back again to Podlyasye, because Prince Boguslav, who is not with the King of Sweden, has planned to fall upon Tykotsin and Pan Sapyeha. And since he must leave a great part of his troops in garrisons, we order you to go to his assistance with that Tartar chambul. And since your own wish is thus gratified, we need not urge you to hasten. The other letter you will give to the voevoda; in it we commend Pan Babinich, our faithful servant, to the good will of the voevoda, and above all to the protection of God.
“By the dear God! by the dear God! This is happy news for me!” cried Kmita. “I know not how to thank the king and you for it.”
“I offered myself to come,” said the little knight, “out of compassion, for I saw your pain; I came so that the letters might reach you surely.”
“When did the courier arrive?”
“We were with the king at dinner—I, Pan Yan, Pan Stanislav, Kharlamp, and Zagloba. You cannot imagine what Zagloba told there about the carelessness of Sapyeha, and his own services. It is enough that the king cried from continual laughter, and both hetmans were holding their sides all the time. At last the chamber servant came with a letter; when the king burst out, ‘Go to the hangman, maybe evil news will spoil my
