‘Thou devil, Mazeppa!’ I cried. ‘I would to heaven I had allowed the wolves to gnaw thy naked carcass that day in Volhynia thou knowest of!’
Mazeppa flushed red and then grew pale.
‘The Hetman was set riding naked through his own country, brothers,’ said I, ‘for disgraceful conduct: he was bound to his horse and would have starved but for me. It was then he bestowed the immeasurable favour of his presence upon the Cossack nation, who have now made him their Hetman. I am Chelminsky, whose father, under Hmelnisky, fought and beat the Poles. I wish I had left this tyrant to the wolves: it is I that should be Hetman—not Mazeppa!’
I must have been beside myself to speak these foolish words: to my shame I record them.
‘Let the sentence go forward,’ said Mazeppa, white with rage; ‘Bedinsky first.’
And then before my eyes they bound poor Bedinsky upon his knees to a tree stump and beheaded him with a sword.
I commended my soul to Christ, praying even more heartily that Mazeppa’s misdeeds might be remembered against him for this crowning sin.
And now came my turn. They came to remove me from the tree to which I was bound in order that I might be re-bound to a stump more convenient for beheading; but Mazeppa bade them pause.
‘Chelminsky, thou has proved once again how great a fool thou art,’ he said. ‘Know that I had made up my mind to forgive in remembrance of our old friendship and of a certain service thou didst me, and which I have not forgotten. But since thou hast lied before all these people, inventing some ridiculous adventure of which I have now heard for the first time, maliciously desiring to injure me in the eyes of my faithful people, I have thought better of my mercy. Thou must die for thy foolishness.’
‘Mercy and Mazeppa!’ I exclaimed bitterly. ‘Mercy is a bastard child if of thy begetting, Mazeppa; no wonder it is strangled at the very birth!’