Now Ostrojka, standing by the side of the voevoda, struck himself a number of times on the legs, and crowed like a cock with such shrillness that all eyes were turned to him. Then he shouted, “Gracious lords! brothers, dear hearts! listen to my riddle.”
With the genuine fickleness of March weather, the stormy militia changed in one moment to curiosity and desire to hear some new stroke of wit from the jester.
“We hear! we hear!” cried a number of voices.
The jester began to wink like a monkey and to recite in a squeaking voice,—
“After his brother he solaced himself with a crown and a wife,
But let glory go down to the grave with his brother.
He drove out the vice-chancellor; hence now has the fame
Of being vice-chancellor to—the vice-chancellor’s wife.”
“The king! the king! As alive! Yan Kazimir!” they began to cry from every side; and laughter, mighty as thunder, was heard in the crowd.
“May the bullets strike him, what a masterly explanation!” cried the nobles.
The voevoda laughed with the others, and when it had grown somewhat calm he said, with increased dignity: “And for this affair we must pay now with our blood and our heads. See what it has come to! Here, jester, is a ducat for thy good verse.”
“Kryshtofek! Krysh dearest!” said Ostrojka, “why attack others because they keep jesters, when thou not only keepest me, but payest separately for riddles? Give me another ducat and I’ll tell thee another riddle.”
“Just as good?”