More than once, however, Pan Andrei had before him sights still more marvellous. Behold at times, among parties of horsemen, he saw marching groups, larger or smaller, of Polish nobles, with armed attendants; these nobles were joyous, singing songs, drunk, and with Swedes and Germans on the footing of “lord brother.”
“How is this?” asked Kmita. “They are persecuting some nobles and crushing them, while with others they enter into friendship. It must be that those citizens whom I see among the soldiers are fanatical traitors?”
“Not merely fanatical traitors, but worse, for they are heretics,” answered the noble. “They are more grievous to us Catholics than the Swedes; they are the men who plunder most, burn houses, carry off maidens, commit private offences. The whole country is in alarm from them, for everything drops from these men altogether without punishment, and it is easier to get justice from Swedish commanders against a Swede, than against one of our own heretics. Every commandant, if you utter a word, will answer at once, ‘I have no right to touch him, for he is not my man; go to your own tribunals.’ And what tribunals are there here now, and what execution of law when everything is in Swedish hands? Where the Swede cannot go the heretics will take him, and they are the men chiefly who incite the Swedes against churches and clergy. This is the way in which they punish the country, our mother, for having given them refuge here and freedom for their blasphemous faith when they were persecuted in other Christian lands justly, for their intrigues and abominations.”
The noble stopped and looked with alarm at Kmita,—
“But you say that you are from Electoral Prussia, so you may be a Lutheran?”
“God save me from that,” answered Pan Andrei. “I am from Prussia, but of a family Catholic for ages, for we went from Lithuania to Prussia.”
“Then praise to the Most High, for I was frightened. My dear sir, as to Lithuania there is no lack of dissidents there; and they have a powerful chief in Radzivill, who has turned out so great a traitor that he can come into comparison with Radzeyovski alone.”
“May God grant the devils to pull the soul out through his throat before the New Year!” exclaimed Kmita, with venom.
“Amen!” answered the noble, “and also the souls of his servants, his assistants, his executioners, of whom tidings have come even to us, and without whom he would not have dared to bring destruction on this country.”
Kmita grew pale and said not a word. He did not ask even—he did not dare to ask—of what assistants, servants, and executioners that noble was speaking.