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

what shall I, poor devil! do unless I go at you with this hatchet and tumble you from the horse?”

Here the voice of Volodyovski, submissive at first, hissed with such venom that Kharlamp looked at him with involuntary astonishment and dropped his sleeve. “Oh, it is all one!” said he. “You will give me a chance in Warsaw, I’ll look after you!”

“I won’t hide; but how can we fight in Warsaw, be so kind as to instruct me. I have never been there yet in my life; I am a simple soldier, but I have heard of court-martials which execute a man for drawing his sabre in the presence of the king or during an interregnum.”

“It is evident that you have never been in Warsaw, and that you are an ignorant clown, since you are afraid of court-martials and don’t know that in the interregnum a chapter is in session with which the question is easier, and you may be sure they won’t take my head for your ears.”

“Thank you for the information, and I will ask you for information frequently; for I see that you are a man of no ordinary experience, and I, since I practise only the lowest of the rudiments, am barely able to make an adjective agree with a noun, and if I wanted to call (which God forbid) your Honor a fool, then I know that I should say stultus, and not stulta or stultum.”

Here Volodyovski began again to throw up the hatchet, and Kharlamp was astonished again. The blood rushed to his face, and he pulled his sabre out of the scabbard; but in the twinkle of an eye the little knight, putting his hatchet under his knee, drew his own. For a moment they looked at each other, like two stags, with distended nostrils, and with fire in their eyes; but Kharlamp considered that he would have an affair with the voevoda himself if he fell upon his officer going with an order, therefore he sheathed his sabre.

“Oh, I’ll find you, you son of a such a one!” said he.

“You’ll find me, you’ll find me, you fish-broth!” said the little knight.

And they parted⁠—one going to the cavalcade, the other to the squadrons, which had approached considerably during this time, so that through the clouds of dust was heard the clatter of the hoofs on the hard road. Volodyovski straightened the cavalry and the infantry to the proper line, and moved to the head. After a while Zagloba trotted up to him.

“What did that scarecrow of the sea want of you?” asked he of Volodyovski.

“Oh, nothing!⁠—he called me out to a duel.”

“Here is trouble for you; he will punch a hole through you with his nose. Look out, Pan Michael, that you don’t cut off the biggest nose in the Commonwealth, for you will have to raise a separate mound over it. Happy is the voevoda of Vilna! Others must send scouting-parties out to look for the enemy, but this one could scent them for miles. But why did he challenge you?”

“Because I rode by the carriage of Anusia Borzobogata.”

“You ought to have told him to go to Pan Longin at Zamost. He would have dressed him with pepper and ginger. That fish-broth fellow has struck badly; it is evident that he has less luck than his nose.”

“I said nothing to him about Pan Podbipienta,” said Volodyovski, “for he might have dropped me. I’ll pay court now to Anusia with redoubled fervor out of spite. I want to have my sport too; what better employment can we have in Warsaw?”

“We’ll find it, Pan Michael, we’ll find it,” said Zagloba, winking. “When in my younger years I was a deputy from the squadron in which I served, I travelled through the whole country, but such life as I found in Warsaw I found nowhere else.”

“You say it is different from what we have in the Trans-Dnieper?”

“Of course it is!”

“I am very curious,” said Pan Michael. After a while he added: “Still, I’ll trim the mustaches of that fish-broth, for they are too long.”

XLIV

A number of weeks passed. The nobles assembled in greater and greater numbers for the election. The population of the city increased tenfold; for with the crowds of nobles poured in thousands of merchants and shopkeepers of the whole world, from distant Persia to England beyond the sea. On the field of Vola a booth was built for the senate, and around it whitened already thousands of tents, with which the spacious meadows were entirely covered. No one could tell yet which of the two candidates⁠—Prince Kazimir, the cardinal, or Karl Ferdinand, the bishop of Plotsk⁠—would be elected. On both sides great were the efforts and exertions made. Thousands of pamphlets were given to the world, relating the merits and defects of the candidates. Both had numerous and powerful adherents. On the side of Karl stood, as is known, Prince Yeremi, who was the more terrible for his opponents, as it was always likely that he would draw after him the inferior nobles, who were enamoured of him; and with the inferior nobles lay the ultimate decision. But neither did Kazimir lack power. Seniority was in his favor. On his side was the influence of the chancellor; the primate appeared to incline to him. On his side stood the majority of the magnates, each of whom had numerous clients; and among the magnates also was Prince Dominik Zaslavski Ostrogski, voevoda of Sandomir, with greatly injured reputation after Pilavtsi and even threatened with prosecution, but always the greatest lord in the Commonwealth, nay, even in all Europe, and able at any moment to throw the immense weight of his wealth into the scale of his candidate.

Still the adherents of Kazimir more than once had bitter hours of doubt; for as has been said, everything depended on the inferior nobles, who, beginning from the 4th