“Praise be to God for that! let us sit down at the table.”
“To the table! to the table!”
They had barely taken their places and filled their cups when Ranitski sprang up again: “To the health of the Under-chamberlain Billevich!”
“Stupid!” answered Kmita, “how is that? You are drinking the health of a dead man.”
“Stupid!” repeated the others. “The health of the master!”
“Your health!”
“May we get good in these chambers!”
Kmita cast his eyes involuntarily along the dining-hall, and he saw on the larch wood walls, blackened by age, a row of stern eyes fixed on him. Those eyes were gazing out of the old portraits of the Billeviches, hanging low, within two ells of the floor, for the wall was low. Above the portraits in a long unbroken row were fixed skulls of the aurochs, of stags, of elks, crowned with their antlers: some, blackened, were evidently very old; others were shining with whiteness. All four walls were ornamented with them.
“The hunting must be splendid, for I see abundance of wild beasts,” said Kmita.
“We will go to-morrow or the day after. We must learn the neighborhood,” answered Kokosinski. “Happy are you, Yendrus, to have a place to shelter your head!”