“We send to you our most faithful servant, who is called the Hector of Chenstohova, from the time of the siege of that glorious place; and he has saved our freedom and life at the risk of his own during our passage through the mountains. Have him in special care, so that no injustice come to him from the soldiers. We know his real name, and the reasons for which he serves under an assumed one; no man is to hold him in suspicion because of this change, or suspect him of intrigues.”
“But is it not possible to know why you bear an assumed name?” asked the voevoda.
“I am under sentence, and cannot make levies in my own name. The king gave me a commission, and I can make levies as Babinich.”
“Why do you want levies if you have Tartars?”
“For a greater force would not be in the way.”
“And why are you under sentence?”
“Under the command and protection of whomsoever I go, him I ought to tell all as to a father. My real name is Kmita.”
The voevoda pushed back a couple of steps,—
“He who promised Boguslav to carry off our king, living or dead?”
Kmita related with all his energy how and what had happened,—how, befogged by Prince Yanush, he had served the Radzivills; how he had learned their real purposes from the mouth of Boguslav, and then carried off the latter and thus incurred his implacable vengeance.