The line was formed; they turned the horses’ heads from the town. The prince was in the middle.
“Forward!” said he. “On a gallop from the start,—march!”
The line shot on, and after a certain time was moving like a whirlwind. A cloud of dust hid them from the eyes of the attendants and equerries, who, collecting in a crowd at the gate, looked with curiosity at the racing. The trained horses going at the highest speed, snorting from effort, had run already a furlong or more; and the prince’s steed, though not held by the reins, did not push forward an inch. They ran another furlong. Kmita turned, and seeing behind only a cloud of dust, through which the starosta’s house could barely be seen, and the people standing before it not at all, cried with a terrible voice,—
“Take him!”
At this moment Biloüs and the gigantic Zavratynski seized both arms of the prince, and squeezed them till the bones cracked in their joints, and holding him in their iron fists, put spurs to their own horses.
The prince’s horse in the middle held the line, neither pushing ahead nor holding back an inch. Astonishment, fright, the whirlwind beating in his face, deprived Prince Boguslav of speech for the first moment. He struggled once and a second time,—without result, however, for pain from his twisted arms pierced him through.
“What is this, ruffians? Know ye not who I am?” cried he at last.
Thereupon Kmita pushed him with the barrel of the pistol between the shoulders. “Resistance is useless; it will only bring a bullet in your body!” cried he.
“Traitor!” said the prince.
“But who are you?” asked Kmita.