With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕

like a madman: “Long life! let us love each other, brothers!” and every little while he filled new half-gallons. “To your success, brothers! To the health of the prince! Prosperity to us! May this paroxysm of our country pass!” Then he covered himself with tears, and stumbled going to the keg, and stumbled more and more; for on the ground, as on a field of battle, lay many a motionless body. “O God,” cried Zagloba, “thou hast no longer any manhood left in this Commonwealth! There are but two men who can drink⁠—one Pan Lashch, and the other Zagloba. As for the rest, my God, my God!” And he raised his eyes in sorrow to the sky. Then he saw that the heavenly bodies were no longer fastened quietly in the firmament like golden nails, but some were trembling as if they wished to spring from their settings; others were whirling in a round dance; a third party of them were dancing the kazachka face to face with each other. Then Zagloba fell into terribly deep thought, and said to his musing soul⁠—

“Is it possible that I alone in the universe am not drunk?” But suddenly the earth itself quivered, like the stars, in a mad whirl, and Zagloba fell his whole length on the ground.

Soon awful dreams came to him. It seemed as if nightmares were sitting on his breast, pressing him, squeezing him to the ground, binding him hand and foot. At the same time tumult and as it were the sound of shots struck his ears; a glaring light passed his closed lids, and struck his eyes with an unendurable flash. He wished to rouse himself, to open his eyes, and he could not. He felt that something unusual was happening to him⁠—that his head was dropping back as if he were being carried by hands and feet. Then fear seized him; he felt badly, very badly, very heavy. Consciousness returned in part, but strangely, for in company with such weakness as he had never felt in his life. Again he tried to move; but when he could not, he woke up more and opened his eyelids.

Then his gaze met a pair of eyes which were fastened on him eagerly; their pupils were black as coal, and so ill-omened that Zagloba, now thoroughly awake, thought at the first moment that the devil was looking at him. Again he closed his eyes, and again he opened them quickly. Those eyes looked at him continually, stubbornly. The countenance seemed to him familiar. All at once he shivered to the marrow of his bones, cold sweat covered him, and down his spine to his feet passed thousands of ants. He recognized the face of Bogun!

XL

Zagloba lay bound hand and foot to his own sabre, which was passed across behind his knees, in that same room in which the wedding was celebrated. The terrible chief sat at some distance on a bench, and feasted his eyes on the terror of the prisoner.

“Good evening!” said he, seeing the open lids of his victim.

Zagloba made no answer, but in one twinkle of an eye came to his senses as if he had never put a drop of wine to his mouth; the ants which had gone down to his heels returned to his head, and the marrow in his bones grew cold as ice. They say that a drowning man in the last moment sees clearly all his past⁠—that he remembers everything, and gives himself an account of that which is happening to him. Such clearness of vision and memory Zagloba possessed in that hour; and the last expression of that clearness was a silent cry, unspoken by the lips⁠—

“He will give me a flaying now.”

And the leader repeated, with a quiet voice: “Good evening!”

“Brr!” thought Zagloba, “I would rather go to the furies.”

“Don’t you know me, lord noble?”

“With the forehead, with the forehead! How is your health?”

“Not bad; but as to yours, I’ll occupy myself with that.”

“I have not asked God for such a doctor, and I doubt if I could digest your medicine; but the will of God be done.”

“Well, you cured me; now I’ll return thanks. We are old friends. You remember how you bound my head in Rozlogi, do you not?”

Bogun’s eyes began to glitter like two carbuncles, and the line of his mustaches extended in a terrible smile.

“I remember,” said Zagloba, “that I might have stabbed you, and I did not.”

“But have I stabbed you, or do I think to stab you? No! For me you are a darling, a dear; and I will guard you as the eye in my head.”

“I have always said that you are an honorable cavalier,” said Zagloba, pretending to take Bogun’s words in earnest. At the same time through his mind flew the thought: “It is evident that he is meditating some special delicacy for me. I shall not die in simple style.”

“You speak well,” continued Bogun. “You too are an honorable cavalier; so we have sought and found each other.”

“What is true is that I have not sought you; but I thank you for the good word.”

“You will thank me still more before long; and I will thank you for this, that you took the young woman from Rozlogi to Bar. There I found her; and I would ask you to the wedding, but it will not be today nor tomorrow⁠—there is war at present⁠—and you are an old man, perhaps you will not live to see it.”

Zagloba, notwithstanding the terrible position in which he found himself, pricked up his ears. “To the wedding!” he muttered.

“But what did you think?” asked Bogun. “That I was a peasant, to constrain her without a priest, or not to insist on being married in Kiev. You brought her to Bar not for a peasant, but for an ataman and a hetman.”

“Very good!” thought Zagloba. Then he turned his head to Bogun. “Give the order to unbind