“While there is breath in my nostrils, while the last drop of blood is in my breast,” cried Zagloba, with the force of deep conviction, “nothing will come of that! I should not wish to live in a nation so disgraced as to make a traitor and a Judas its king.”
“That is the voice not only of reason, but of civic virtue,” muttered the vice-chancellor, again.
“Ha!” thought Zagloba, “if you wish to draw me, I will draw you.”
Then the vice-chancellor began anew: “When wilt thou sail in, O battered ship of my country? What storms, what rocks are in wait for thee? In truth, it will be evil if a foreigner becomes thy steersman; but it must be so evidently, if among thy sons there is no one better.” Here he stretched out his white hands, ornamented with glittering rings, and inclining his head, said with resignation, “Then Condé, or he of Lorraine, or the Prince of Neuberg? There is no other outcome!”
“That is impossible! A Pole!” answered Zagloba.
“Who?” inquired the prelate.
Silence followed. Then the prelate began to speak again: “If there were even one on whom all could agree! Where is there a man who would touch the heart of the knighthood at once, so that no one would dare to murmur against his election? There was one such, the greatest, who had rendered most service,—your worthy friend, O knight, who walked in glory as in sunlight. There was such a—”
“Prince Yeremi Vishnyevetski!” interrupted Zagloba.
“That is true. But he is in the grave.”
“His son lives,” replied Zagloba.