‘Impossible? And yet it is possible to disobey the King’s command! What say you, Mazeppa?’
‘We were attacked, Majesty,’ said Mazeppa; ‘it is the instinct of our race to stand by one another. I could not see Chelminsky cut to pieces before my eyes.’
‘Indeed,’ said the King, very sternly; ‘if that be so, go fight one another’s battles where you will for the future. I will have no spitfires in my Court; go, both of you, whence you came. Let me see your faces no more. As for you others, your case shall be considered.’
Then Zofsky behaved in a manner I should not have expected, for he stood forth and boldly told the King that it might be he and Vladimirsky were more to blame in this matter than we, since they had, indeed, provoked us in a manner that no honourable man could tolerate. But the honest fellow did no service to his cause, for the King flew into a passion and chased from his Court both Zofsky and Vladimirsky, who might otherwise have been forgiven as well as our two selves, so that of his five pages only one remained to him. What became of these young Poles I have never heard and have never inquired; enough that the career of Mazeppa and myself was ended in so far as concerned the Court of Poland. We retired into Volhynia with hearts abashed and heavy, somewhat sullen, and much depressed in spirit, for both of us were ambitious, and indeed it seemed as though our prospects were irretrievably ruined.
CHAPTER II
After our dismissal from the Polish Court we returned for a while to our own homes, where we should have seen little of one another but for the circumstance that we happened to fall in love—if the mild passion of a youth of seventeen can be called by that name—with the same lady, an attractive person of mature age, in comparison with our own, and withal the wife of another, a neighbour, Falbofsky.
It became our delight—an unworthy pastime, indeed—to compete for the favour of this lady, and this foolish competition was the first beginning of the state of constant rivalry in which we two have since passed our lives.
Probably, but for the desire to outdo one another, neither of us would have thought seriously of the matter. I am sure, looking back through the years that have passed, that I was never in love with Falbofsky’s wife, and Mazeppa has many times assured me that his attentions to the lady were prompted by that necessity for some kind of amusement or pastime which every idle youth must experience. But though both denied afterwards that love impelled us to the lady’s side, I think we were both at the time seriously determined to get the better of one another in her affections; and I remember that each boasted continually of the progress and success of his pursuit of the fair one, who smiled, I dare say, impartially upon both of us, pleased with the attentions of each, though not disposed to reward either with any but the cheapest favours.
The matter ended somewhat abruptly, and indeed seriously enough for all parties concerned.
Falbofsky was a Polish noble. We had seen him occasionally at the King’s Court, where, being our senior, he had taken but little notice of us. We did not like him, and our visits to his wife were generally undertaken when we knew that he was away from home, at Court or elsewhere.