“For opening the gates of the fortress his Royal Grace,” here again he enumerated the titles, “gives your princely grace the province of Lubelsk in perpetual possession.”
All were astonished when they heard this, and Zamoyski himself was astonished for a moment. Forgell had begun to turn a triumphant look on the people around him, when suddenly and in deep silence Zagloba, standing behind Zamoyski, said in Polish,—
“Your worthiness, offer the King of Sweden the Netherlands in exchange.”
Zamoyski, without thinking long, put his hands on his hips and fired through the whole hall in Latin,—
“And I offer to his Swedish Serenity the Netherlands!”
That moment the hall resounded with one immense burst of laughter. The breasts of all were shaking, and the girdles on their bodies were shaking; some clapped their hands, others tottered as drunken men, some leaned on their neighbors, but the laughter sounded continuously. Forgell was pale; he frowned terribly, but he waited with fire in his eyes and his head raised haughtily. At last, when the paroxysm of laughter had passed, he asked in a short, broken voice,—
“Is that the final answer of your worthiness?”
Zamoyski twirled his mustache. “No!” said he, raising his head still more proudly, “for I have cannon on the walls.”
The embassy was at an end.
Two hours later cannons were thundering from the trenches of the Swedes, but Zamoyski’s guns answered them with equal power. All Zamost was covered with smoke, as with an immense cloud; moment after moment there were flashes in that cloud, and thunder roared unceasingly. But fire from the heavy fortress guns was preponderant. The Swedish balls fell in the moat or bounded without effect from the strong angles; toward evening the enemy were forced to draw back from the nearer trenches, for the fortress was covering them with such a rain of missiles that nothing living could endure it. The Swedish king, carried away by anger, commanded to burn all the villages and hamlets, so that the neighborhood seemed in the night one sea of fire; but Zamoyski cared not for that.