“You are an honest man, and in need you are cunning. You will go on a long road, but not on a hungry one.”
“According to order!”
“To Tyltsa, on the Prussian border. There Panna Billevich is living in the castle of Boguslav Radzivill. You will learn if the prince is there, and have an eye on everything. Do not try to see Panna Billevich, but should a meeting happen of itself, tell her, and swear that I brought the king through the mountains, and that I am near his person. She will surely not give you credit; for the prince has defamed me, saying that I wished to attempt the life of the king,—which is a lie befitting a dog.”
“According to order!”
“Do not try to see her, as I have said, for she will not believe you. But if you meet by chance, tell her what you know. Look at every thing, and listen! But take care of yourself, for if the prince is there and recognizes you, or if any one from his court recognizes you, you will be impaled on a stake. I would send old Kyemlich, but he is in the other world, slain in the pass, and his sons are too dull. They will go with me. Have you been in Tyltsa?”
“I have not, your grace.”
“You will go to Shchuchyn, thence along the Prussian boundary to Tyltsa. Taurogi is twenty miles distant from Tyltsa and opposite, on our side. Stay in Taurogi till you have seen everything, then come to me. You will find me where I shall be. Ask for the Tartars and Pan Babinich. And now go to sleep with the Kyemliches. To-morrow for the road.”
After these words, Soroka went out. Kmita did not lie down to sleep for a long time, but at last weariness overcame him; then he threw himself on the bed, and slept a stone sleep.
Next morning he rose greatly refreshed and stronger than the day before. The whole court was already on foot, and the usual activity had begun. Kmita went first to the chancellery, for his commission and safe-conduct; he visited Suba Gazi Bey, chief of the Khan’s embassy in Lvoff, and had a long conversation with him.
During that conversation Pan Andrei put his hand twice in his purse; so that when he was going out Suba Gazi Bey changed caps with him, gave him a baton of green feathers and some yards of an equally green cord of silk.