“Because I am not only a Polish hetman, but a Christian hetman, for I stand in defence of the Cross. And even if those Cossacks were to tear the entrails of the Commonwealth more cruelly than ever, I will not cut the necks of a blinded but still Christian people with the swords of Pagans. For by doing so I should say ‘raca’ to our fathers and grandfathers, to my own ancestors, to their ashes, to the blood and tears of the whole past Commonwealth. As God is true! if destruction is waiting for us, if our name is to be the name of a dead and not of a living people, let our glory remain behind and a memory of that service which God pointed out to us; let people who come in after time say, when looking at those crosses and tombs: ‘Here is Christianity; here they defended the Cross against Mohammedan foulness, while there was breath in their breasts, while the blood was in their veins; and they died for other nations.’ This is our service, Bogush. Behold, we are the fortress on which Christ fixed His crucifix, and you tell me, a soldier of God, nay, the commander of the fortress, to be the first to open the gate and let in Pagans, like wolves to a sheepfold, and give the sheep, the flock of Jesus, to slaughter. Better for us to suffer from chambuls; better for us to endure rebellions; better for us to go to this terrible war; better for me and you to fall, and for the whole Commonwealth to perish,—than to put disgrace on our name, to lose our fame, and betray that guardianship and that service of God.”
When he had said this, Pan Sobieski stood erect in all his grandeur; on his face there was a radiance such as must have been on that of Godfrey de Bouillon when he burst in over the walls of Jerusalem, shouting, “God wills it!” Pan Bogush seemed to himself dust before those words, and Azya seemed to him dust before Pan Sobieski, and the fiery plans of the young Tartar grew black and became suddenly in the eyes of Bogush something dishonest and altogether infamous. For what could he say after the statement of the hetman that it was better to fall than to betray the service of God? What argument could he bring? Therefore he did not know, poor knight, whether to fall at the knees of the hetman, or to beat his own breast, repeating, “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”
But at that moment the sound of bells was given out from the neighboring Dominican monastery.
Hearing this, Pan Sobieski said,—
“They are sounding for vespers, Bogush; let us go and commit ourselves to God.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
As much as Pan Bogush hastened when going from Hreptyoff to the hetman, so much did he loiter on the way back. He halted a week or two in each more considerable place; he spent Christmas in Lvoff, and the New Year came on him there. He carried, it is true, the hetman’s instructions for the son of Tugai Bey; but they contained merely injunctions to finish the affair of the captains promptly, and a dry and even threatening command to leave his great plans. Pan Bogush had no reason to push on, for Azya could do nothing among the Tartars without a document from the hetman. He loitered, therefore, visiting churches along the road, and doing penance because he had joined Azya’s plans.
Meanwhile guests had swarmed into Hreptyoff immediately after the New Year. From Kamenyets came Naviragh, a delegate from the patriarch of Echmiadzin, with him the two Anardrats, skilful theologians from Kaffa, and a numerous retinue. The soldiers wondered greatly at the strange garments of these men, at the violet and red Crimean caps, long shawls, velvet and silk, at their dark faces, and the great gravity with which they strode, like bustards or cranes, through the Hreptyoff stanitsa. Pan Zaharyash Pyotrovich, famed for his continual journeys to the Crimea, nay, to Tsargrad itself, and still more for the eagerness with which he sought out and ransomed captives in the markets of the East, accompanied, as interpreter, Naviragh and the Anardrats. Pan Volodyovski counted out to him at once the sum needful to ransom Pan Boski; and since the wife had not money sufficient, he gave from his own; Basia added her ear-rings with pearls, so as to aid more efficiently the suffering lady and her charming daughter. Pan Seferovich, pretor of Kamenyets, came also,—a rich Armenian whose brother was groaning in Tartar bonds,—and two women, still young and of beauty far from inconsiderable, though somewhat dark, Pani Neresevich and Pani Kyeremovich. Both were concerned for their captive husbands.
The guests were for the greater part in trouble, but there were joyous ones also. Father Kaminski had sent, to remain for the carnival at Hreptyoff, under Basia’s protection, his niece Panna Kaminski; and on a certain day Pan Novoveski the younger—that is, Pan Adam—burst in like a thunderbolt. When he had heard of the arrival of his father at Hreptyoff he obtained leave at once from Pan Rushchyts, and hastened to meet him.
Pan Adam had changed greatly during the last few years; first of all, his upper lip was shaded thickly by a short mustache, which did not cover his teeth, white as a wolf’s teeth, but was handsome and twisted. Secondly, the young man, always stalwart, had now become almost a giant. It seemed that such a dense and bushy forelock could grow only on such an enormous head, and such an enormous head could find needful support only on fabulous shoulders. His face, always dark, was swarthy from the winds; his eyes were gleaming like coals; defiance was as if written on his features. When he seized a large apple he hid it so easily in his powerful palm that he could play “guess which one;” and when he put a handful of nuts on his knee and pressed them with his hand he made snuff of them. Everything in him went to strength; still he was lean,—his stomach was receding, but the chest above it was as roomy as a chapel. He broke horseshoes with ease, he tied iron rods around the necks of soldiers, he seemed even larger than he was in reality; when he walked, planks creaked under him; and when he stumbled against a bench, he knocked splinters from it.