“Troops are coming.”
“Surely some Swedish detachment!”
“With them only infantry have spears; but there the dust is moving quickly. That is cavalry,—our men!”
“Ours, ours!” repeated the dragoons.
“Form!” thundered Pan Roh.
The dragoons surrounded the wagon in a circle. Pan Volodyovski had flame in his eyes.
“Those are my Lauda men with Zagloba! It cannot be otherwise!”
Now only forty rods divided those approaching from the wagon, and the distance decreased every instant, for the coming detachment was moving at a trot. Finally, from out the dust pushed a strong body of troops moving in good order, as if to attack. In a moment they were nearer. In the first rank, a little from the right side, moved, under a bunchuk, some powerful man with a baton in his hand. Scarcely had Volodyovski put eye on him when he cried,—
“Pan Zagloba! As I love God, Pan Zagloba!”
A smile brightened the face of Pan Yan. “It is he, and no one else, and under a bunchuk! He has already created himself hetman. I should have known him by that whim anywhere. That man will die as he was born.”