“God give you health for hurrying!” said the hetman.
“At the service of your highness.”
“But the squadron?”
“According to order.”
“The men are reliable?”
“They will go into fire, to hell.”
“That is good! I need such men—and such as you, equal to anything. I repeat continually that on no one more than you do I count.”
“Your highness, my services cannot equal those of old soldiers; but if we have to march against the enemy of the country, God sees that I shall not be in the rear.”
“I do not diminish the services of the old,” said the prince, “though there may come such perils, such grievous junctures, that the most faithful will totter.”
“May he perish for nothing who deserts the person of your highness in danger!”
The prince looked quickly into the face of Kmita. “And you will not draw back?”
The young knight flushed. “What do you wish to say, your princely highness? I have confessed to you all my sins, and the sum of them is such that I thank only the fatherly heart of your highness for forgiveness. But in all these sins one is not to be found—ingratitude.”
“Nor disloyalty. You confessed to me as to a father; I not only forgave you as a father, but I came to love you as that son—whom God has not given me, for which reason it is often oppressive for me in the world. Be then a friend to me.”
When he had said this, the prince stretched out his hand. The young knight seized it, and without hesitation pressed it to his lips.
They were both silent for a long time; suddenly the prince fixed his eyes on the eyes of Kmita and said, “Panna Billevich is here!”
Kmita grew pale, and began to mutter something unintelligible.
“I sent for her on purpose so that the misunderstanding between you might be at an end. You will see her at once, as the mourning for her grandfather is over. Today, too, though God sees that my head is bursting from labor, I have spoken with the sword-bearer of Rossyeni.”
Kmita seized his head. “With what can I repay your highness, with what can I repay?”
“I told him emphatically that it is my will that you and she should be married, and he will not be hostile. I commanded him also to prepare the maiden for it gradually. We have time. All depends upon you, and I shall be happy if a reward from my hand goes to you; and God grant you to await many others, for you must rise high. You have offended because you are young; but you have won glory not the last in the field, and all young men are ready to follow you everywhere. As God lives, you must rise high! Small offices are not for such a family as yours. If you know, you are a relative of the Kishkis, and my mother was a Kishki. But you need sedateness; for that, marriage is the best thing. Take that maiden if she has pleased your heart, and remember who gives her to you.”
“Your highness, I shall go wild, I believe! My life, my blood belongs to your highness. What must I do to thank you—what? Tell me, command me!”
“Return good for good. Have faith in me, have confidence that what I do I do for the public good. Do not fall away from me when you see the treason and desertion of others, when malice increases, when—” Here the prince stopped suddenly.
“I swear,” said Kmita, with ardor, “and give my word of honor to remain by the person of your highness, my leader, father, and benefactor, to my last breath.”
Then Kmita looked with eyes full of fire at the prince, and was alarmed at the change which had suddenly come over him. His face was purple, the veins swollen, drops of sweat were hanging thickly on his lofty forehead, and his eyes cast an unusual gleam.
“What is the matter, your highness?” asked the knight, unquietly.
“Nothing! nothing!”
Radzivill rose, moved with hurried step to a kneeling desk, and taking from it a crucifix, said with powerful, smothered voice, “Swear on this cross that you will not leave me till death.”
In spite of all his readiness and ardor, Kmita looked for a while at him with astonishment.
“On this passion of Christ, swear!” insisted the hetman.
“On this passion of Christ, I swear!” said Kmita, placing his finger on the crucifix.
“Amen!” said the prince, with solemn voice.
An echo in the lofty chamber repeated somewhere under the arch, “Amen,” and a long silence followed. There was to be heard only the breathing of the powerful breast of Radzivill. Kmita did not remove from the hetman his astonished eyes.
“Now you are mine,” said the prince, at last.
“I have always belonged to your highness,” answered the young knight, hastily; “but be pleased to explain to me what is passing. Why does your highness doubt? Or does anything threaten your person? Has any treason, have any machinations been discovered?”
“The time of trial is approaching,” said the prince, gloomily, “and as to enemies do you not know that Pan Gosyevski, Pan Yudytski, and the voevoda of Vityebsk would be glad to bury me in the bottom of the pit? This is the case! The enemies of my house increase, treason spreads, and public defeats threaten. Therefore, I say, the hour of trial draws near.”
Kmita was silent; but the last words of the prince did not disperse the darkness which had settled around his mind, and he asked himself in vain what could threaten at that moment the powerful Radzivill. For he stood at the head of greater forces than ever. In Kyedani itself and in the neighborhood there were so many troops that if the prince had such power before he marched to Shklov the fortune of the whole war would have come out differently beyond doubt.
Gosyevski and Yudytski were, it is true,
