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

with a drawling voice. “A year ago I was fleeing with her on the Kagamlik from Bogun, and in this same way those birds were twittering; and where is she now?”

“God has so ordained,” said Volodyovski.

“Ordained to tears and sorrow, Pan Michael. There is no more consolation for me.”

They were silent; but through the open window came, with power increasing each moment, the trill of the nightingales, with which all that clear night seemed filled.

“Oh, God, God!” sighed Zagloba, “exactly as it was on the Kagamlik.”

Pan Longin shook a tear from his great mustaches, and the little knight said after a while⁠—

“Sorrow is sorrow; but drink some mead with us, for there is nothing better against sorrow. At the glass we will talk of better times.”

“Let us drink,” said Zagloba, with resignation.

Volodyovski ordered the servant to bring a light and decanter, and afterward, when they had sat down, knowing that reminiscences enlivened Zagloba more than anything else, he inquired: “It is just a year, is it not, since you fled with her before Bogun from Rozlogi?”

“It was in May, in May,” answered Zagloba. “We passed through the Kagamlik to flee to Zólotonosha. Oh, it is hard in this world!”

“And she was disguised?”

“As a Cossack. I had to cut off her hair with my sabre, poor thing! so that she shouldn’t be discovered. I know the place under the tree where I hid the hair, together with the sabre.”

“Oh, she was a sweet lady!” added Longin, with a sigh.

“I tell you, gentlemen, from the first day I fell in love with her as if I had paid homage to her from youthful years. And she would clasp her hands before me and thank me for her rescue and my care. I wish they had killed me before I had lived to this day! Would that I had not lived to it!”

Then came silence again, and the three knights drank mead mixed with tears. After that Zagloba began to speak again.

“I thought to pass a calm old age with them, but now”⁠—here his hands hung down powerless⁠—“nowhere solace, nowhere solace, but in the grave⁠—”

Before Zagloba had finished speaking a disturbance rose in the anteroom; someone wished to enter, and the servant would not let him in. A wordy struggle followed, in which it seemed to Volodyovski that he recognized some known voice; therefore he called to the servant not to forbid entrance further.

The door opened, and in it appeared the plump, ruddy face of Jendzian, who, passing his eyes over those present, bowed and said: “May Jesus Christ be praised!”

“For the ages of ages,” said Volodyovski. “This is Jendzian?”

“I am he,” said the young man, “and I bow to your knees. And where is my master?”

“Your master is in Korets, and ill.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, what do you tell me? And is he seriously ill, which God forbid?”

“He was, but he is better now. The doctor says he will recover.”

“For I have come with news about the lady to my master.”

The little knight began to nod his head in melancholy fashion. “You need not hasten, for Pan Skshetuski already knows of her death, and we here are shedding tears of mourning for her.”

Jendzian’s eyes were bursting from his head. “By violence! What do I hear? Is she dead?”

“Not dead, but murdered in Kiev by robbers.”

“What are you talking about? In what Kiev?”

“Don’t you know Kiev?”

“For God’s sake, are you fooling with me? What had she to do in Kiev when she is hidden in the ravine at Valadinka, not far from Rashkoff, and the witch was commanded not to move a step till Bogun should come? As God is dear to me, must I run mad?”

“What witch are you speaking of?”

“Why, Horpyna! I know that bass-viol well.”

Zagloba stood up suddenly from the bench, and began to strike out with his hands like a man who has fallen into deep water and is trying to save himself from drowning.

“By the living God, be quiet!” said he to Volodyovski. “By God’s wounds, let me ask him!”

The company trembled, so pale was Zagloba, and the perspiration came out on his bald head. He sprang over the bench to Jendzian, and seizing the young fellow by the shoulders, asked in a hoarse voice⁠—

“Who told you that she is near Rashkoff, secreted?”

“Who should tell me? Bogun!”

“Are you mad, fellow?” roared Zagloba, shaking him like a pear-tree. “What Bogun?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” called Jendzian, “why do you shake me so? Let me go, let me collect my wits, for I am losing my senses. You have turned everything over in my head. What Bogun should there be⁠—or don’t you know him?”

“Speak, or I’ll stab you!” shouted Zagloba. “Where did you see Bogun?”

“In Vlodava! What do you want of me?” cried the frightened young man. “Am I a robber?”

Zagloba lost the thread of his thought, breath failed him, and he fell on the bench panting heavily. Volodyovski came to his aid.

“When did you see Bogun?” asked Volodyovski.

“Three weeks ago.”

“Then he is alive?”

“Why shouldn’t he be? He told me himself how you split him up, but he has recovered.”

“And he told you that the young lady is at Rashkoff?”

“Who else should tell me?”

“Listen, Jendzian! it is a question here of the life of your master and the young lady. Did Bogun himself tell you that she was not in Kiev?”

“My master, how could she be in Kiev when he secreted her at Rashkoff, and told Horpyna on peril of her life not to let her escape? But now he has given me a baton and his ring to go to her; for his wounds opened, and he had to lie down himself, it is unknown for how long.”

Further words from Jendzian were interrupted by Zagloba, who sprang from the bench again, and seizing the remnant of his hair with both hands, began to shout like a madman: “My daughter is living⁠—by God’s wounds, she is living! They didn’t kill her in Kiev; she is alive, she is alive, my