Kmita cast himself on his knees before Radzivill. “Mighty prince, I am with you to the death! Father of the country, savior!”
Radzivill put both hands on his head, and again followed a moment of silence. Only the owl hooted unceasingly on the tower.
“You will receive all that you have yearned for and wished,” said the prince, with solemnity. “Nothing will miss you, and more will meet you than your father and mother desired. Rise, future grand hetman and voevoda of Vilna!”
It had begun to dawn in the sky.
CHAPTER XVI.
Pan Zagloba had his head mightily full when he hurled the word “traitor” thrice at the eyes of the terrible hetman. At an hour nearer morning, when the wine had evaporated from his bald head, and he found himself with the two Skshetuskis and Pan Michael in a dungeon of Kyedani Castle, he saw, when too late, the danger to which he had exposed his own neck and the necks of his comrades, and was greatly cast down.
“But what will happen now?” asked he, gazing with dazed look on the little knight, in whom he had special trust in great peril.
“May the devil take life! it is all one to me!” answered Volodyovski.
“We shall live to such times and such infamy as the world and this kingdom have not seen hitherto!” said Pan Yan.
“Would that we might live to them!” answered Zagloba; “we could restore virtue in others by our good example. But shall we live? That is the great question.”