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

explain to you who I am if you had challenged me to sabres like a soldier; but since you threaten with arrest, then I will explain. Here is a letter which I carry from the Zaporojian hetman to Prince Kazimir, and not finding him in Nyeporente, I am going with it to Zaborovo. How will you arrest me now?”

Bogun looked haughtily and sneeringly at Volodyovski. Pan Michael was greatly confused, like a hound which feels that the game is escaping him; and not knowing what to do, he turned an inquiring look at Zagloba. A painful moment of silence followed.

“It is difficult indeed,” said Zagloba. “Since you are an envoy, we cannot arrest you; and you will not meet this cavalier with a sabre, for you have already fled before him till the earth groaned.”

Bogun’s face grew purple, for that moment he recognized Volodyovski. Shame and wounded pride sprang into play in the fearless chief. The remembrance of that flight scorched him like fire. It was the single stain on the fame of his heroism⁠—the fame which he loved beyond life, beyond all.

The inexorable Zagloba continued in cold blood: “You had almost lost your trousers, when pity penetrated this cavalier. Tfu! young hero, you have a woman’s face, and a woman’s heart too. You were brave with the old princess and the lad her son, but with a knight you are a windbag. Carry letters, steal young ladies⁠—that’s your work, not war! As God is dear to me, I saw with my own eyes how your trousers were flying around. Tfu, tfu! Now you talk of the sabre, for you are carrying a letter. How are we to meet you when you shield yourself with that letter? All dust in the eyes, young hero! Hmelnitski is a good soldier, Krívonos a good one; but among the Cossacks there is many a cowardly sneak.”

Bogun pushed up suddenly to Zagloba, and Zagloba drew back with equal swiftness behind Volodyovski, so that the two young knights stood before each other, eye to eye.

“Not from fear did I retreat before you, but to save my men,” said Bogun.

“I know not your reasons for fleeing, but I know that you fled,” said Volodyovski.

“I will meet you anywhere, even here, this minute.”

“Will you challenge me?” asked Volodyovski, half closing his eyes.

“You have touched my fame, tried to cast shame on me, I need your blood.”

“No dispute on those points,” said Volodyovski.

“No harm to the consenting party,” added Zagloba. “But who will deliver the letter to the prince?”

“Give yourself no headache over that; it is my affair.”

“Fight, then, if it cannot be otherwise,” said Zagloba. “But if fortune favors you against this cavalier, remember that you will have to meet me. And now, Pan Michael, come out to the front of the house; I have something important to say.”

The two friends went out and called Kushel from under the window of the room.

“Gentlemen, our affair is a bad one. He has really a letter to the prince; if we kill him, it is a capital crime. Remember that the chapter ‘propter securitatem loci’ has jurisdiction ten miles from the field of election, and he is the same as an envoy. A weighty question! We must either hide somewhere afterward, or perhaps the prince will protect us; otherwise it may go hard with us. And to let him go free again is still worse. This is the only way to liberate our poor young lady. For when he is no longer in the world we shall find her more easily. The Lord himself evidently wishes to aid her and Skshetuski; that’s clear. Let us help.”

“Will you invent some stratagem?” asked Kushel.

“With my stratagem I have already brought him to challenge us. But seconds are necessary⁠—strangers. My idea is to wait for Kharlamp. I will undertake to make him yield his first place, and in case of need, to testify how we were challenged and obliged to defend ourselves. We must also find out more accurately from Bogun where he hid the young lady. If he has to die, she is nothing to him; perhaps he will tell if we press him. And if he won’t tell, then it is better that he should not live. It is necessary to do everything with foresight and discretion. My head is bursting, gentlemen.”

“Who will fight with him?” asked Kushel.

“Pan Michael first, I second,” said Zagloba.

“And I third.”

“Impossible!” interrupted Volodyovski. “I will fight with him alone, and that will be the end. If he brings me down, it is his fortune. Let him go in peace.”

“I’ve told him already,” said Zagloba; “but if it is your wish, I yield.”

“If it is his wish, he may fight with you, but with no one else.”

“Let us go to him then.”

“Let us go.”

They found Bogun in the main room, drinking mead. He was perfectly calm.

“Listen,” said Zagloba, “for these are important questions which we want to discuss with you. You have challenged this cavalier. Very well. But you must know that since you are an envoy you are protected by law, for you come among civilized men, not among wild beasts; and therefore we cannot meet you unless you state before witnesses that you have challenged us of your own free will. A number of nobles with whom we had to fight a duel will come here, and you will make this statement before them. We will give you our knightly word that if fortune favors you against Pan Volodyovski you will go away at liberty, and no one will hinder you, unless you wish to make a trial with me.”

“Agreed,” said Bogun. “I will make that statement before those nobles, and I will tell my men to deliver the letter and to inform Hmelnitski, if I perish, that I made the challenge. And if God favors me to vindicate my Cossack fame against this knight, I will ask you to sabres.”

When he had spoken he looked into Zagloba’s eyes, Zagloba was rather