“Well and good. Now keep a close watch and let me know anything that is new. I will be at the Inn of the Golden Elephant every afternoon at the third hour, but do not tell any one there that you are looking for me. Let your words be only for my ears. And remember, the lantern in the man’s face to-night. There will be much gold for you. You understand?”
The man did. His very shoulders seemed to chuckle at the thought of it. He let himself into the court and went at once to his room.
In the meantime the other walked briskly to the inn and sat down at a table. His thoughts were dancing in his head, for by an extraordinary piece of luck he had succeeded in locating the family of Pan Andrew. Luck indeed it was because never, if he had come upon him face to face in the street, would he have known Joseph at all. It was only because Stas had named him as the son of the man who went abroad only by night, that he could see any resemblance to that boy who had sent his horse flying away through the mud on that morning so many weeks before. For this man was that same one who called himself Stefan Ostrovski.
“They disappeared that day after the riot,” he thought to himself as he sat in the inn, “and were nowhere to be found. The earth might have opened and swallowed them whole. No other Charnetski in Krakow answered their description—I had well given them up for lost and with them a castle and coffers of gold in the Ukraine. For when Ivan, himself, promises, then there is profit to be had. I return to the Ukraine, but there is no word from them there. My men are even now riding from city to city in the vain hunt. Meanwhile I, answering some tiny voice of wisdom that speaks from somewhere into my ear, come back here.”
He struck the table with his fist. “Men call me Bogdan Grozny—Bogdan the Terrible,” he exclaimed, “but terror often has brains. This venture has begun in luck and must end well. And once I get what I seek from that white-faced Pole he shall rue the day of my humiliation at the Krakow Gate.” And with the thought of that adventure a look of hatred came into his eyes.
His attention was diverted for the moment by the sight of a beggar with a dirty bandage across his face working from table to table at the inn, begging for alms in a whining tone.
As the beggar came near, the man dropped a coin in the outstretched hand and whispered, “You come late to-day.”
“Pardon me, master, I thought I had a scent.”
The beggar seemed to expect a blow, and assumed a defensive attitude, when the man smiled.
“No matter, the work is done,” he whispered. “Mount your horse to-night and ride like the wind for Tarnov. There you will send out our brothers to bring in the men who are hunting. It may take three weeks—but hurry before the first fall of snow comes.”