“As God is dear to me! And you have brought an informant! How is that? Tell me.”
“Gracious Lord; when a wolf prowls in the night around a flock of sheep it is easy for him to seize one; and besides, to tell the truth, this is not the first time with me.”
The king raised his hands. “But this Babinich is a soldier, may the bullets strike him! I see that with such servants I can go even in the midst of Swedes.”
Meanwhile all gathered around the horseman, who did not rise from the ground however.
“Ask him, Gracious Lord,” said Kmita, not without a certain boastfulness in his voice; “though I do not know whether he will answer, for he is throttled a little and there is nothing here to burn him with.”
“Pour some gorailka into his throat,” said the king.
And indeed that medicine helped more than burning, for the horseman soon recovered strength and voice. Then Kmita, putting a sword-point to his throat, commanded him to tell the whole truth.
The prisoner confessed that he belonged to the regiment of Colonel Irlehorn, that they had intelligence of the passage of the king with dragoons, therefore they fell upon them near Suha, but meeting firm resistance they had to withdraw to Jivyets, whence they marched on to Vadovitsi and Cracow, for such were their orders.
“Are there other divisions of the Swedes in the mountains?” asked Kmita in German, while squeezing the throat of the horseman somewhat more vigorously.
“Maybe there are some,” answered he in a broken voice. “General Douglas sent scouting-parties around, but they are all withdrawing, for the peasants are attacking them in passes.”