“And what kind of people have you here? Where did you get these assistants?” asked Volodyovski.
“Where I got them I got them. I did not bring them against the country, but to obtain my own rights.”
“Is that the kind of man you are? So for private affairs you have joined the enemy. And with what have you paid him for this service, if not with treason? No, brother, I should not hinder you from coming to terms with the nobles, but to call in the enemy is another thing. You will not creep out. Stand up now, stand up, or I shall say that you are a coward, though you give yourself out as a master from Orsha.”
“You would have it,” said Kmita, taking position.
But Volodyovski did not hurry, and not taking his sabre out yet, he looked around on the sky. Day was already coming in the east. The first golden and azure stripes were extended in a belt of light, but in the yard it was still gloomy enough, and just in front of the house complete darkness reigned.
“The day begins well,” said Volodyovski, “but the sun will not rise soon. Perhaps you would wish to have light?”
“It is all one to me.”
“Gentlemen!” cried Volodyovski, turning to the nobles, “go for some straw and for torches; it will be clearer for us in this Orsha dance.”
The nobles, to whom this humorous tone of the young colonel gave wonderful consolation, rushed quickly to the kitchen. Some of them fell to collecting the torches trampled at the time of the battle, and in a little while nearly fifty red flames were gleaming in the semidarkness of the early morning.
Volodyovski showed them with his sabre to Kmita. “Look, a regular funeral procession!”
And Kmita answered at once: “They are burying a colonel, so there must be parade.”
“You are a dragon!”
Meanwhile the nobles formed in silence a circle around the knights, and raised the burning torches aloft; behind them others took their places, curious and disquieted; in the centre the opponents measured each other with their eyes. A grim silence began; only burned coals fell with a crackle to the ground. Volodyovski was as lively as a goldfinch on a bright morning.
“Begin!” said Kmita.
The first clash raised an echo in the heart of every onlooker. Volodyovski struck as if unwillingly; Kmita warded and struck in his turn; Volodyovski warded. The dry clash grew more rapid. All held breath. Kmita attacked with fury. Volodyovski put his left hand behind his back and stood quietly, making very careless, slight, almost imperceptible movements; it seemed that he wished merely to defend himself, and at the same time spare his opponent. Sometimes he pushed a short step backward, again he advanced; apparently he was studying the skill of Kmita. Kmita was growing heated; Volodyovski was cool as a master testing his pupil, and all the time calmer and calmer. At last, to the great surprise of the nobles, he said—
“Now let us talk; it will not last long. Ah, ha! is that the Orsha method? ’Tis clear that you must have threshed peas there, for you strike like a man with a flail. Terrible blows! Are they really the best in Orsha? That thrust is in fashion only among tribunal police. This is from Courland, good to chase dogs with. Look to the end of your sabre! Don’t bend your hand so, for see what will happen! Raise your sabre!”
Volodyovski pronounced the last words with emphasis; at the same time he described a half-circle, drew the hand and sabre toward him, and before the spectators understood what “raise” meant, Kmita’s sabre, like a needle pulled from a thread, flew above Volodyovski’s head and fell behind his shoulders; then he said—
“That is called shelling a sabre.”
Kmita stood pale, wild-eyed, staggering, astonished no less than the nobles of Lauda; the little colonel pushed to one side, and repeated again—
“Take your sabre!”
For a time it seemed as if Kmita would rush at him with naked hands. He was just ready for the spring, when Volodyovski put his hilt to his own breast, presenting the point. Kmita rushed to take his own sabre, and fell with it again on his terrible opponent.
A loud murmur rose from the circle of spectators, and the ring grew closer and closer. Kmita’s Cossacks thrust their heads between the shoulders of the nobles, as if they had lived all their lives in the best understanding with them. Involuntarily shouts were wrested from the mouths of the onlookers; at times an outburst of unrestrained, nervous laughter was heard; all acknowledged a master of masters.
Volodyovski amused himself cruelly like a cat with a mouse, and seemed to work more and more carelessly with the sabre. He took his left hand from behind his back and thrust it into his trousers’ pocket. Kmita was foaming at the mouth, panting heavily; at last hoarse words came from his throat through his set lips—
“Finish—spare the shame!”
“Very well!” replied Volodyovski.
A short terrible whistle was heard, then a smothered cry. At the same moment Kmita threw open his arms, his sabre dropped to the ground, and he fell on his face at the feet of the colonel.
“He lives!” said Volodyovski; “he has not fallen on his back!” And doubling the skirt of Kmita’s coat, he began to wipe his sabre.
The nobles shouted with one voice, and in those shouts thundered with increasing clearness: “Finish the traitor! finish him! cut him to pieces!”
A number of Butryms ran up with drawn sabres. Suddenly something wonderful happened—and one would have said that little Volodyovski had grown tall before their eyes: the sabre of the nearest Butrym flew out of his hand after Kmita’s, as if a whirlwind had caught it, and Volodyovski shouted with flashing eyes—
“Stand back,
