“Did you follow her advice?”
“How could I, Gracious Lord! I wished to do so, it is true,—God sees that I wished; but old sins follow a man. First, my soldiers were attacked in Upita, for which I burned some of the place.”
“In God’s name! that is a crime,” said the king.
“That is nothing yet. Later on, the nobles of Lauda slaughtered my comrades, worthy cavaliers though violent. I was forced to avenge them. I fell upon the village of the Butryms that very night, and took vengeance, with fire and sword, for the murder. But they defeated me, for a crowd of homespuns live in that neighborhood. I had to hide. The maiden would not look at me, for those homespuns were made fathers and guardians to her by the will. But my heart was so drawn to her that I could not help myself. Unable to live without her, I collected a new party and seized her with armed hand.”
“Why, the Tartars do not make love differently.”
“I own that it was a deed of violence. But God punished me through the hands of Pan Volodyovski, and he cut me so that I barely escaped with my life. It would have been a hundred times better for me if I had not escaped, for I should not have joined the Radzivills to the injury of the king and the country. But how could it be otherwise? A new suit was begun against me for a capital offence; it was a question of life. I knew not what to do, when suddenly the voevoda of Vilna came to me with assistance.”
“Did he protect you?”
“He sent me a commission through this same Pan Volodyovski, and thereby I went under the jurisdiction of the hetman, and was not afraid of the courts. I clung to Radzivill as to a plank of salvation. Soon I put on foot a squadron of men known as the greatest fighters in all Lithuania. There were none better in the army. I led them to Kyedani. Radzivill received me as a son, referred to our kinship through the Kishkis, and promised to protect me. He had his object. He needed daring men ready for all things, and I, simpleton, crawled as it were into bird-lime. Before his plans had come to the surface, he commanded me to swear on a crucifix that I would not abandon him in any straits. Thinking it a question of war with the Swedes or the Northerners, I took the oath willingly. Then came that terrible feast at which the Kyedani treaty was read. The treason was published. Other colonels threw their batons at the feet of the hetman, but the oath held me as a chain holds a dog, and I could not leave him.”
“But did not all those who deserted us later swear loyalty?” asked the king, sadly.
“I, too, though I did not throw down my baton, had no wish to steep my hands in treason. What I suffered, Gracious Lord, God alone knows. I was writhing from pain, as if men were burning me alive with fire; and my maiden, though even after the seizure the agreement between us remained still unbroken, now proclaimed me a traitor, and despised me as a vile reptile. But I had taken oath not to abandon Radzivill. She, though a woman, would shame a man with her wit, and lets no one surpass her in loyalty to your Royal Grace.”