“Not so often as I,” said Zagloba.
“Now I understand,” put in Bogush, “why he is so much esteemed among the Tartars of Lithuania and the South. And they remember Tugai’s name as sacred. By the living God, if that man had the wish, he might take every Tartar to the Sultan’s service, and cause us a world of trouble.”
“He will not do that,” answered Pan Michael, “for what he has said—that he loves the country and the hetman—is true; otherwise he would not be serving among us, being able to go to the Crimea and swim there in everything. He has not known luxury with us.”
“He will not go to the Crimea,” said Pan Bogush, “for if he had had the wish, he could have done so already; he met no hindrance.”
“On the contrary,” added Nyenashinyets, “I believe now that he will entice back all those traitorous captains to the Commonwealth again.”
“Pan Novoveski,” said Zagloba, suddenly, “if you had known that he was the son of Tugai Bey, perhaps then—perhaps so—what?”
“I should have commanded to give him, instead of three hundred, three thousand blows. May the thunderbolts shatter me if I would not have done so! Gracious gentlemen, it is a wonder to me that he, being Tugai Bey’s whelp, did not run off to the Crimea, It must be that he discovered this only recently; for when with me he knew nothing about it. This is a wonder to me, I tell you it is; but for God’s sake, do not trust him. I know him, gentlemen, longer than you do; and I will tell you only this much: the devil is not so slippery, a mad dog is not so irritable, a wolf is less malignant and cruel, than that man. He will pour tallow under the skins of you all yet.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Mushalski. “We have seen him in action at Kalnik, at Uman, at Bratslav, and in a hundred other emergencies.”
“He will not forget his own; he will have vengeance,” said Novoveski.
“But to-day he slew Azba’s ravagers. What are you telling us?”