“I must go to Prussia,” said Babinich, “and cannot be at Warsaw.”
“Can you reach Prussia?” asked Volodyovski.
“As God is in heaven, I shall spring through; and I promise you sacredly to make not the worst cabbage-hash, for I shall say to my Tartars, ‘Riot, my soul!’ They would be glad even here to draw the knife across people’s throats; but I have told them that pay for every violence is the rope. But in Prussia I will give way even to my own will. Why should I not spring through? You were not able; but that is another thing, for it is easier to stop a large force than such a party as mine, with which it is easy to hide. More than once was I sitting in the rushes, and Douglas’s men passed right there, knowing nothing of me. Douglas too will surely follow you, and leave the field free to me.”
“But, as we hear, you have wearied him out too,” said Pan Michael, with satisfaction.
“Ah, the scoundrel!” added Zagloba. “He had to change his shirt every day, he sweated so. You never stole up to Hovanski better than to him, and I must acknowledge that I could not have done better myself, though, in his time, Konyetspolski said that Zagloba in partisan warfare was unsurpassed.”
“It seems to me,” said Pan Michael to Kmita, “that if Douglas returns he will leave Boguslav here to attack you.”
“God grant it! I have the same hope,” answered Kmita, quickly. “Were I to seek him, and he me, we should find each other. He will not pass through me a third time; and if he does, then I shall not rise again. I remember your secrets well; and all the Lubni thrusts I have in memory like ‘Our Father.’ Every day, too, I try them with Soroka, so as to train my hand.”
“What are stratagems good for?” exclaimed Pan Michael; “the sabre is the main thing.”
This maxim touched Zagloba somewhat; therefore he said at once: “Every windmill thinks that the main thing is to whirl its wings. Do you know why, Michael? Because it has chaff under its roof; that is, in its head. Military art rests on stratagems; if not, Roh Kovalski might be grand hetman and you full hetman.”
“And what is Pan Kovalski doing?” asked Kmita.
“Pan Kovalski has now an iron helmet on his head, and justly, for cabbage is best out of a pot. He has grown rich on plunder in Warsaw, has come into good repute, and gone to the hussars, to Prince Polubinski, and all so as to be able to put a spear into Karl Gustav. He comes every day to our tent, and stares to see if the neck of the decanter is sticking out of the straw. I cannot break that lad of drinking. Good example goes for nothing; but I prophesied to him that this desertion of the Lauda squadron would turn out evil. The rogue! the thankless fellow! in return for all the benefits which I have shown him, such a son for a lance!”
“But did you rear him?”
“My dear sir, do not make me a bear-trainer! To Sapyeha, who asked me the same question. I answered that he and Roh had the same preceptor, but not me; for I in youthful years was a cooper, and knew how to set staves very well.”40
“To begin with, you would not dare to tell that to Sapyeha,” said Volodyovski; “and secondly, though you grumble at Kovalski, you love him as the apple of your eye.”
“I prefer him to you, Pan Michael; for I could never endure May-bugs, nor soapy little fellows who at the sight of the first woman who comes along play antics like German dogs.”
“Or like those monkeys in the Kazanovski Palace, with which you were carrying on war.”
“Oh, laugh, laugh! You can take Warsaw without me next time.”
“Was it you, then, who took Warsaw?”
“But who captured the Krakow Gate? Who invented captivity for the generals? They are sitting now on bread and water in Zamost; and when Wittemberg looks at Wrangel, he says, ‘Zagloba put us here!’ and both fall to weeping. If Sapyeha were not ill, and if he were present, he would tell you who first drew the Swedish claw from the skin of Warsaw.”
“For God’s sake!” said Kmita, “do this for me—send news of that battle for which they are preparing at Warsaw. I shall be counting the days and nights on my fingers till I know something certain.”
Zagloba put his finger to his forehead. “Listen to my forecast,” said he, “for what I tell you will be accomplished as surely as that this glass is standing before me—Is it not standing before me?”
“It is, it is! Speak on.”
“We shall either lose this general battle, or we shall win it—”
“Every man knows that!” put in Volodyovski.
“You might be silent, Michael, and learn something. Supposing that we lose this battle, do you know what will happen? You see you do not know, for you are moving those little awls under your nose like a rabbit. Well, I will tell you that nothing will happen—”
Kmita, who was very quick, sprang up, struck his glass on the table, and said—
“You are beating around the bush!”
“I say nothing will happen!” repeated Zagloba. “You are young, therefore you do not know. As affairs now stand, our king, our dear country, our armies may lose fifty battles one after another, and the war will go on in the old fashion—the nobles will assemble, and with them the lower ranks. But if they do not succeed one time, they will another, until the enemy’s force has melted away. But when the Swedes lose one great battle, the Devil will take them without salvation, and with them the elector to boot.”
Here Zagloba grew animated,
