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

me to leave them at least their shirts. I told them they ought to be grateful that I left them their lives. And see here, young lady! Everything is new⁠—the coats and the boots and the shirts. There must be nice order in that Commonwealth, in which trash dress so richly. But they were at a festival in Brovarki, where they collected no small amount of money and bought everything new at the fair. Not a single noble will plough out so much in this country as a minstrel will beg. Therefore I abandon my career as a knight, and will strip grandfathers on the highway, for I see that in this manner I shall arrive at fortune more quickly.”

“For what purpose did you do that?” asked Helena.

“Just wait a minute, and I will show you for what purpose.”

Saying this, he took half the plundered clothing and went into the reeds which covered the bank. After a time the sounds of a lyre were heard in the rushes, and there appeared, not Pan Zagloba, but a real “grandfather” of the Ukraine, with a cataract on one eye and a gray beard. The “grandfather” approached Helena, singing with a hoarse voice⁠—

“Oh, bright falcon, my own brother,
High dost thou soar,
And far dost thou fly!”

The princess clapped her hands, and for the first time since her flight from Rozlogi a smile brightened her beautiful face.

“If I did not know that it was you, I should never have recognized you.”

“Well,” said Zagloba, “I know you have not seen a better mask at a festival. I looked into the Kagamlik myself; and if ever I have seen a better-looking grandfather, then hang me. As for songs, I have no lack of them. What do you prefer? Maybe you would like to hear of Marusia Boguslava, of Bondarivna, or the death of Sierpahova; I can give you that. I am a rogue if I can’t get a crust of bread among the worst knaves that exist.”

“Now I understand your action, why you stripped the clothing from those poor creatures⁠—because it is safer to go over the road in disguise.”

“Of course,” said Zagloba; “and what do you suppose? Here, east of the Dnieper, the people are worse than anywhere else; and now when they hear of the war with the Zaporojians, and the victories, of Hmelnitski, no power will keep them from rebellion. You saw those herdsmen who wanted to get our skins. If the hetmans do not put down Hmelnitski at once, the whole country will be on fire in two or three days, and how should I take you through bands of peasants in rebellion? And if you had to fall into their hands, you would better have remained in Bogun’s.”

“That cannot be! I prefer death,” interrupted Helena.

“But I prefer life; for death is a thing from which you cannot rise by any wit. I think, however, that God sent us this old man and the youth. I frightened them with the prince and his whole army as I did the herdsmen. They will sit in the reeds naked for three days from terror, and by that time we shall reach Zólotonosha in disguise somehow. We shall find your cousins and efficient aid; if not, we will go farther to the hetmans⁠—and all this in safety, for grandfathers have no fear of peasants and Cossacks. We might take our heads in safety through Hmelnitski’s camp. But we have to avoid the Tartars, for they would take you as a youth into captivity.”

“Then must I too disguise myself?”

“Yes; throw off your Cossack clothes, and disguise yourself as a peasant youth⁠—though you are rather comely to be a clodhopper’s child, as I am to be a grandfather; but that is nothing. The wind will tan your face, and my stomach will fall in from walking. I shall sweat away all my thickness. When the Wallachians burned out my eye, I thought that an absolutely awful thing had come upon me; but now I see it is really an advantage, for a grandfather not blind would be suspected. You will lead me by the hand, and call me Onufri, for that is my minstrel name. Now dress up as quickly as you can, since it is time for the road, which will be so long for us on foot.”

Zagloba went aside, and Helena began at once to array herself as a minstrel boy. Having washed in the river, she cast aside the Cossack coat, and took the peasant’s svitka, straw hat, and knapsack. Fortunately the youth stripped by Zagloba was tall, so that everything fitted Helena well.

Zagloba, returning, examined her carefully, and said⁠—

“God save me! more than one knight would willingly lay aside his armor if he only had such an attendant as you; and I know one hussar who would certainly. But we must do something with that hair. I saw handsome boys in Stamboul, but never one so handsome as you are.”

“God grant my beauty may work no ill for me!” said Helena. But she smiled; for her woman’s ear was tickled by Zagloba’s praise.

“Beauty never turns out ill, and I will give you an example of this; for when the Turks in Galáts burned out one of my eyes, and wanted to burn out the other, the wife of the Pasha saved me on account of my extraordinary beauty, the remnants of which you may see even yet.”

“But you said that the Wallachians burned your eye out.”

“They were Wallachians, but had become Turks, and were serving the Pasha in Galáts.”

“They didn’t burn even one of your eyes out.”

“But from the heated iron a cataract grew on it. It’s all the same. What do you wish to do with your tresses?”

“What! I must cut them off?”

“You must. But how?”

“With your sabre.”

“It is well to cut a head off with this sword, but hair⁠—I don’t know how.”

“Well, I will sit by that log and put my hair across it, you can strike and cut