A flush came out on the countenance of Bogush; it seemed that his own words bore him away, for at the end he raised both hands and cried,—
“This is what I bring! This is what that dragon’s whelp has brooded out in the wild woods of Hreptyoff! All that is needed now is to give him a letter and permission from your great mightiness to spread a report in the Crimea and on the Danube. Your great mightiness, if Tugai Bey’s son were to do nothing except to make an uproar in the Crimea and on the Danube, to cause misunderstandings, to rouse the hydra of civil war among the Tartars, to embroil some camps against others, and that on the eve of conflict, I repeat, he would render a great and undying service to the Commonwealth.”
But Pan Sobieski walked back and forth with long strides through the room, without speaking. His lordly face was gloomy, almost terrible; he strode, and it was to be seen that he was conversing in his soul,—unknown whether with himself or with God.
At last thou didst open some page in thy soul, grand hetman, for thou gavest answer in these words to the speaker:—
“Bogush, even if I had the right to give such a letter and such permission, while I live I should not give them.”
These words fell as heavily as if they had been of molten lead or iron, and weighed so on Bogush that for a time he was dumb, hung his head, and only after a long interval did he groan out,—
“Why, your great mightiness, why?”
“First, I will tell you, as a statesman, that the name of Tugai Bey’s son might attract, it is true, a certain number of Tartars, if land, liberty, and the rights of nobility were offered them; but not so many would come as he and you have imagined. And, besides, it would be an act of madness to call Tartars to the Ukraine, and settle new people there, when we cannot manage the Cossacks alone. You say that disputes and war will rise among them at once, that there will be a sword ready for the Cossack neck; but who will assure you that that sword would not be stained with Polish blood also? I have not known this Azya, hitherto; but now I perceive that the dragon of pride and ambition inhabits his breast, therefore I ask again, who will guarantee that there is not in him a second Hmelnitski? He will beat the Cossacks; but if the Commonwealth shall fail to satisfy him in something, and threaten him with justice and punishment for some act of violence, he will join the Cossacks, summon new hordes from the East, as Hmelnitski summoned Tugai Bey, give himself to the Sultan, as Doroshenko has done, and, instead of a new growth of power, new bloodshed and defeats will come on us.”
“Your great mightiness, the Tartars, when they have become nobles, will hold faithfully to the Commonwealth.”
“Were there few of the Lithuanian Tartars and Cheremis? They were nobles a long time, and went over to the Sultan.”