“He is, your Royal Grace. But he is here to-day and there to-morrow. I have to join him, but where to find him I know not.”
“There will be noise around him,” said the king; “you will not need to inquire.”
“So I think too,” answered Voynillovich.
In such conversation was the road passed. Meanwhile the sky had grown perfectly clear, so that the azure was unspotted by even a small cloud. The snow was glittering in the sunlight. The mountains of Spij were extended gloriously and joyously before the travellers, and Nature itself seemed to smile on the king.
“Dear country!” said Yan Kazimir, “God grant me strength to bring thee peace before my bones rest in thy earth.”
They rode out on a lofty eminence, from which the view was open and wide, for beyond, at the foot of it, was spread a broad plain. There they saw below, and at a great distance as it were, the movement of a human ant-hill.
“The troops of the marshal!” cried Voynillovich.
“Unless they are Swedes,” said the king.
“No, Gracious Lord! The Swedes could not march from Hungary, from the south. I see now the hussar flag.”
In fact a forest of spears soon pushed out in the blue distance, and colored streamers were quivering like flowers moved by the wind; above these flags spear-points were glittering like little flames. The sun played on the armor and helmets.