“I know,” said Azya, “that I owe them gratitude, and I will try to repay them. Your grace has remarked truly that I have found here a multitude of benefactors.”
“You speak as if it were bitter in your mouth when you say that; but count yourself your well-wishers.”
“His grace the hetman and you in the first rank,—that I will repeat until death. What others there are, I know not.”
“But the commandant here? Do you think that he would yield you into any one’s hands, even though you were not Tugai Bey’s son? And Pani Volodyovski, I heard what she said about you during supper. Even before, when Novoveski recognized you, she took your part. Pan Volodyovski would do everything for her, for he does not see the world beyond her; a sister could not have more affection for a brother than she has for you. During the whole time of supper your name was on her lips.”
The young Tartar bent his head suddenly, and began to blow into the cup of hot drink; when he put out his somewhat blue lips to blow, his face became so Tartar-like that Pan Bogush said,—
“As God is true, how entirely like Tugai Bey you were this moment passes imagination. I knew him perfectly. I saw him in the palace of the Khan and on the field; I went to his encampment it is small to say twenty times.”
“May God bless the just, and the plague choke evildoers!” said Azya. “To the health of the hetman!”
Pan Bogush drank, and said, “Health and long years! It is true those of us who stand with him are a handful, but true soldiers. God grant that we shall not give up to those bread-skinners, who know only how to intrigue at petty diets, and accuse the hetman of treason to the king. The rascals! We stand night and day with our faces to the enemy, and they draw around kneading-troughs full of hashed meat and cabbage with millet, and are drumming on them with spoons,—that is their labor. The hetman sends envoy after envoy, implores reinforcements for Kamenyets. Cassandra-like, he predicts the destruction of Ilion and the people of Priam; but they have no thought in their heads, and are simply looking for an offender against the king.”
“Of what is your grace speaking?”
“Nothing! I made a comparison of Kamenyets with Troy; but you, of course, have not heard of Troy. Wait a little; the hetman will obtain naturalization for you. The times are such that the occasion will not be wanting, if you wish really to cover yourself with glory.”