“Are there many?”
“Some say seventeen thousand, others more.”
“H’m! then there will not be so many of ours. What is your opinion? Shall we be able to oppose them?”
“If the nobles do not appear, there is nothing to talk about.”
“They will come; why should they not come? It is a known fact that the general militia always delay. But shall we be able to succeed with the aid of the nobles?”
“No,” replied Pan Stanislav, coolly. “Serene great mighty voevoda, we have no soldiers.”
“How no soldiers?”
“Your grace knows as well as I that all the regular troops are in the Ukraine. Not even two squadrons were sent here, though at this moment God alone knows which storm is greater.”
“But the infantry, and the general militia?”
“Of twenty peasants scarcely one has seen war; of ten, one knows how to hold a gun. After the first war they will be good soldiers, but they are not soldiers now. And as to the general militia let your grace ask any man who knows even a little about war whether the general militia can stand before regulars, and besides such soldiers as the Swedes, veterans of the whole Lutheran war, and accustomed to victory.”