“Cut off my head!” cried Kmita, “but do not be angry! I have not told all yet!”
“Is there more?” groaned the lady.
“There is, for they sent then to Ponyevyej for aid. One hundred stupid fellows came with officers. These men I frightened away, but the officers—for God’s sake be not angry!—I ordered to be chased and flogged with braided whips, naked over the snow, as I once did to Pan Tumgrat in Orsha.”
Panna Billevich raised her head; her stern eyes were flashing with indignation, and purple came out on her cheeks. “You have neither shame nor conscience!” said she.
Kmita looked at her in astonishment, he was silent for a moment, then asked with changed voice, “Are you speaking seriously or pretending?”
“I speak seriously; that deed is becoming a bandit and not a cavalier. I speak seriously, since your reputation is near my heart; for it is a shame to me that you have barely come here, when all the people look on you as a man of violence and point at you with their fingers.”
“What care I for the people? One dog watches ten of their cabins, and then has not much to do.”
“There is no infamy on those modest people, there is no disgrace on the name of one of them. Justice will pursue no man here except you.”
“Oh, let not your head ache for that. Every man is lord for himself in our Commonwealth, if he has only a sabre in his hand and can gather any kind of party. What can they do to me? Whom fear I here?”
“If you fear not man, then know that I fear God’s anger, and the tears of people; I fear wrongs also. And moreover I am not willing to share disgrace with any one; though I am a weak woman, still the honor of my name is dearer to me than it is to a certain one who calls himself a cavalier.”