After a while he returned with the announcement that the prince asked them to enter.
The two Skshetuskis, with Zagloba and Volodyovski, entered a small but very well-lighted room, having walls covered with leather stamped in flowers, which were gilded. The officers halted on seeing in the depth of the room, at a table covered with papers, two men conversing intently. One of them, still young, dressed in foreign fashion, wearing a wig with long locks falling to his shoulders, whispered something in the ear of his elder companion; the latter heard him with frowning brow, and nodded from time to time. So much was he occupied with the subject of the conversation that he did not turn attention at once to those who had entered.
He was a man somewhat beyond forty years, of gigantic stature and great shoulders. He wore a scarlet Polish coat, fastened at the neck with costly brooches. He had an enormous face, with features expressing pride, importance, and power. It was at once the face of an angry lion, of a warrior, and a ruler. Long pendent mustaches lent it a stern expression, and altogether in its strength and size it was as if struck out of marble with great blows of a hammer. The brows were at that moment frowning from intense thought; but it could easily be seen that when they were frowning from anger, woe to those men and those armies on whom the thunders of that anger should fall.
There was something so great in the form that it seemed to those knights that not only the room, but the whole castle was too narrow for it; in fact, their first impression had not deceived them, for sitting in their presence was Yanush Radzivill, prince at Birji and Dubinki, voevoda of Vilna and grand hetman of Lithuania—a man so powerful and proud that in all his immense estates, in all his dignities, nay, in Jmud and in Lithuania itself, it was too narrow for him.
The younger man in the long wig and foreign dress was Prince Boguslav, the cousin of Yanush. After a while he whispered something more in the ear of the hetman, and at last said audibly—
“I will leave, then, my signature on the document and go.”
“Since it cannot be otherwise, go,” said Yanush, “though I would that you remained, for it is unknown what may happen.”
“You have planned everything properly; henceforth it is needful to look carefully to the cause, and now I commit you to God.”
“May the Lord have in care our whole house and bring it praise.”
“Adieu, mon frère.”
“Adieu.”
The two princes shook hands; then Boguslav went out hurriedly, and the grand hetman turned to the visitors.
“Pardon me, gentlemen, that I let you wait,” said he, with a low, deliberate voice; “but now time and attention are snatched from us on every side. I have heard your names, and rejoice in my soul that God sent me such knights in this crisis. Be seated, dear guests. Who of you is Pan Yan Skshetuski?”
“I am, at the service of your highness.”
“Then you are a starosta—pardon me, I forgot.”
“I am not a starosta,” answered Yan.
“How is that?” asked the prince, frowning with his two mighty brows; “they have not made you a starosta for what you did at Zbaraj?”
“I have never asked for the office.”
“But they should have made you starosta without the asking. How is this? What do you tell me? You rewarded with nothing, forgotten entirely? This is a wonder to me. But I am talking at random. It should astonish no man; for in these days only he is rewarded who has the back of a willow, light-bending. You are not a starosta, upon my word! Thanks be to God that you have come hither, for here we have not such short memories, and no service remains unrewarded. How is it with you, worthy Colonel Volodyovski?”
“I have earned nothing yet.”
“Leave that to me, and now take this document, drawn up in Rossyeni, by which I give you Dydkyemie for life. It is not a bad piece of land, and a hundred ploughs go out to work there every spring. Take even that, for I cannot give more, and tell Pan Skshetuski that Radzivill does not forget his friends, nor those who give their service to the country under his leadership.”
“Your princely highness!” stammered Pan Michael, in confusion.
“Say nothing, and pardon that it is so small; but tell these gentlemen that he who joins his fortune for good and ill with that of Radzivill will not perish. I am not king; but if I were, God is my witness that I would never forget such a Yan Skshetuski or such a Zagloba.”
“That is I!” said Zagloba, pushing himself forward sharply, for he had begun to be impatient that there was no mention of him.
“I thought it was you, for I have been told that you were a man of advanced years.”
“I went to school in company with your highness’s worthy father; and there was such knightly impulse in him from childhood that he took me to his confidence, for I loved the lance before Latin.”
To Pan Stanislav, who knew Zagloba less, it was strange to hear this, since only the day before, Zagloba said in Upita that he had gone to school, not with the late Prince Kryshtof, but with Yanush himself—which was unlikely, for Prince Yanush was notably younger.
“Indeed,” said the prince; “so then you are from Lithuania by family?”
“From Lithuania!” answered Zagloba, without hesitation.
“Then I know that you need no reward, for we Lithuanians are used to be fed with ingratitude. As God is true, if I should give you your deserts, gentlemen, there would be nothing left for myself. But such is fate! We give our blood, lives, fortunes, and no one nods a head to
