"Thou didst speak well." Then he turned to the guests,--
"I beg you, gentlemen, Pan Grothus is a relative through my wife. He is returning, it is evident, to Warsaw from his brother's, for he is a deputy to the Diet. Please enter."
After a time they were all in the dining-room in presence of the starosta of Raygrod, whose head almost grazed the ceiling, for in stature he surpassed the Bukoyemskis, and the rooms were exceedingly low in that mansion. Pan Grothus was a showy noble with an expression of wisdom, and the face and bald head of a statesman. A sword scar on his forehead just over the nose and between his two eyebrows seemed a firm wrinkle, giving his face a stern, and, as it were, angry aspect. But he smiled at Pan Gideon with pleasantness, and opened his arms to him, saying,--
"Well, I, a guest, am now welcoming the host to his own mansion."
"A guest, a dear guest," cried Pan Gideon. "God give thee health for having come to me, lord brother. What dost thou hear over there now in Warsaw?"
"Good news of private matters, of public also, for war is now coming."
"War? How is that? Are we making it?"
"Not yet, but in March a treaty will be signed with the Emperor, then war will be certain."
Though even before the New Year there had been whispers of war with the Sultan, and there were those who considered it inevitable, the confirmation of these rumors from the lips of a person so notable, and intimately acquainted with politics as Pan Grothus, imposed on Pan Gideon and the guests in his mansion very greatly. Barely had the host, therefore, presented them to the starosta, when a conversation followed touching war, touching Tököli and the bloody struggles throughout Hungary, from which, as from an immense conflagration, there was light over all parts of Austria and Poland. That was to be a mighty struggle, before which the Roman Cæsar and all German lands were then trembling. Pan Grothus, skilled much in public matters, declared that the Porte would move half of Asia and all Africa, and appear with such strength as the world had not seen up to that day. But these previsions did not injure good-humor in any one. On the contrary they were listened to with rapture by young men, who were wearied by long peace at home, and to whom war presented fields of glory, service, and even profit.
When Mateush Bukoyemski heard the words of the starosta he so struck his knee with his palm that the sound was heard throughout the mansion.