“We are ready to do that without oaths!” cried numbers of voices. “We will go where our hetman the prince leads us; we will go where ’tis needful.”
“Worthy brothers, you have seen how two stocking-wearers came here in a gilded carriage. They know that there is no trifling with Radzivill. They will follow him from chamber to chamber, and kiss him on the elbows to give them peace. But the prince, worthy gentlemen, with whom I have been advising and from whom I have just returned, has assured me, in the name of all Lithuania, that there will be no negotiations, no parchments, nothing but war and war!”
“War! war!” repeated, as an echo, the voices of the hearers.
“But because the leader,” continued Zagloba, “will begin the more boldly, the surer he is of his soldiers, let us show him, worthy gentlemen, our sentiments. And now let us go under the windows of the prince and shout, ‘Down with the Swedes!’ After me, worthy gentlemen!”
Then he sprang from the post and moved forward, and after him the crowd. They came under the very windows with an uproar increasing each moment, till at last it was mingled in one gigantic shout—“Down with the Swedes! down with the Swedes!”
Immediately Pan Korf, the voevoda of Venden, ran out of the antechamber greatly confused; after him Ganhoff; and both began to restrain the nobles, quieting them, begging them to disperse.
“For God’s sake!” said Korf, “in the upper hall the windowpanes are rattling. You gentlemen do not think what an awkward time you have chosen for your shouting. How can you treat envoys with disrespect, and give an example of insubordination? Who roused you to this?”
“I,” said Zagloba. “Your grace, tell the prince, in the name of us all, that we beg him to be firm, that we are ready to remain with him to the last drop of our blood.”
“I thank you, gentlemen, in the name of the hetman, I thank you; but I beg you to disperse. Consider, worthy gentlemen. By the living God, consider that you are sinking the country! Whoso insults an envoy today, renders a bear’s service to the Commonwealth.”
“What do we care for envoys! We want to fight, not to negotiate!”
“Your courage comforts me. The time for fighting will come before long, God grant very soon. Rest now before the expedition. It is time for a drink of spirits and lunch. It is bad to fight on an empty stomach.”
“That is as true as I live!” cried Zagloba, first.
“True, he struck the right spot. Since the prince knows our sentiments, we have nothing to do here!”
And the crowd began to disperse. The greater part flowed on to rooms in which many tables were already spread. Zagloba sat at the head of one of them. Pan Korf and Colonel Ganhoff returned then to the prince, who was sitting at counsel with the Swedish envoys, Bishop Parchevski, Father Byalozor, Pan Adam Komorovski, and Pan Alexander Myerzeyevski, a courtier of Yan Kazimir, who was stopping for the time in Kyedani.
“Who incited that tumult?” asked the prince, from whose lion-like face anger had not yet disappeared.
“It was that noble who has just come here, that famous Zagloba,” answered Pan Korf.
“That is a brave knight,” said the prince, “but he is beginning to manage me too soon.”
Having said this, he beckoned to Colonel Ganhoff and whispered something in his ear.
Zagloba meanwhile, delighted with himself, went to the lower halls with solemn tread, having with him Volodyovski, with Yan and Stanislav Skshetuski.
“Well, friends, I have barely appeared and have roused love for the country in those nobles. It will be easier now for the prince to send off the envoys with nothing, for all he has to do is to call upon us. That will not be, I think, without reward, though it is more a question of honor with me. Why have you halted, Michael, as if turned to stone, with eyes fixed on that carriage at the gate?”
“That is she!” said Volodyovski, with twitching mustaches. “By the living God, that is she herself!”
“Who?”
“Panna Billevich.”
“She who refused you?”
“The same. Look, gentlemen, look! Might not a man wither away from regret?”
“Wait a minute!” said Zagloba, “we must have a closer look.”
Meanwhile the carriage, describing a half-circle, approached the speakers. Sitting in it was a stately noble with gray mustaches, and at his side Panna Aleksandra; beautiful as ever, calm, and full of dignity.
Pan Michael fixed on her a complaining look and bowed low, but she did not see him in the crowd.
“That is some lordly child,” said Zagloba, gazing at her fine, noble features, “too delicate for a soldier. I confess that she is a beauty, but I prefer one of such kind that for the moment you would ask, ‘Is that a cannon or a woman?’ ”
“Do you know who that is who has just passed?” asked Pan Michael of a noble standing near.
“Of course,” answered the noble; “that is Pan Tomash Billevich, sword-bearer of Rossyeni. All here know him, for he is an old servant and friend of the Radzivills.”
XIV
The prince did not show himself to the nobles that day till evening, for he dined with the envoys and some dignitaries with whom he had held previous counsel. But orders had
