“He was always a great soldier, and in military affairs incomparable. He used to steal up to Hovanski so that with a few hundred people he brought the whole force of the enemy to misery; no other man could have done that. It is a miracle that the skin was not torn from him and stretched over a drum. If at that time some one had placed Prince Radzivill himself in the hands of Hovanski, he would not have given him so much pleasure as he would had he made him a present of Kmita. Why! it went so far that Kmita ate out of Hovanski’s camp-chests, slept on his rugs, rode in his sleighs and on his horse. But he was an infliction on his own people too, terribly self-willed; like Pan Lashch, he might have lined his cloak with sentences, and in Kyedani he was lost altogether.”
Here Volodyovski related in detail all that had happened in Kyedani.
Yan Kazimir listened eagerly, and when at last Pan Michael told how Zagloba had freed first himself and then all his comrades from Radzivill’s captivity, the king held his sides from laughter.
“Vir incomparabilis! vir incomparabilis (an incomparable man)!” he repeated. “But is he here with you?”
“At the command of your Royal Grace!” answered Volodyovski.
“That noble surpasses Ulysses! Bring him to me to dinner for a pleasant hour, and also the Skshetuskis; and now toll me what you know more of Kmita.”
“From letters found on Roh Kovalski we learned that we were sent to Birji to die. The prince pursued us afterward and tried to surround us, but he did not take us. We escaped luckily. And that was not all, for not far from Kyedani we caught Kmita, whom I sent at once to be shot.”
“Oh!” said the king, “I see that you had sharp work there in Lithuania.”
“But first Pan Zagloba had him searched to find letters on his person. In fact, a letter from the hetman was found, in which we learned that had it not been for Kmita we should not have been taken to Birji, but would have been shot without delay in Kyedani.”
“But you see!” said the king.