“Surely it will,” said the radiant Basia.
“One of their sultans, Osman, was here. It was—I remember the case as if to-day—in the year 1621. He came, the pig’s blood, just over there from that side of the Smotrych, from Hotin, stared, opened his mouth, looked and looked; at last he asked, ‘But who fortified that place so?’ ‘The Lord God,’ answered the vizir. ‘Then let the Lord God take it, for I am not a fool!’ And he turned back on the spot.”
“Indeed, they turned back quickly!” put in Pan Mushalski.
“They turned back quickly,” said Zagloba; “for we touched them up in the flanks with spears, and afterward the knighthood bore me on their hands to Pan Lubomirski.”
“Then were you at Hotin?” asked the incomparable bowman. “Belief fails me, when I think where have you not been, and what have you not done.”
Zagloba was offended somewhat and said: “Not only was I there, but I received a wound, which I can show to your eyes, if you are so curious; I can show it directly, but at one side, for it does not become me to boast of it in the presence of Pani Volodyovski.”
The famous bowman knew at once that Zagloba was making sport of him; and as he did not feel himself competent to overcome the old noble by wit, he inquired no further, and turned the conversation.
“What you say is true,” said he: “when a man is far away, and hears people saying, ‘Kamenyets is not supplied, Kamenyets will fall,’ terror seizes him; but when he sees Kamenyets, consolation comes to him.”
“And besides, Michael will be in Kamenyets,” cried Basia.
“And maybe Pan Sobieski will send succor.”