“What sort of maiden was she?” asked Zagloba.
“From a respectable house, a lady-in-waiting on Princess Griselda. She was once engaged to a Lithuanian, Podbipienta, whom you, gentlemen, knew.”
“Anusia Borzobogati!” shouted Volodyovski, springing from his place.
Zagloba jumped up too from a pile of felt. “Pan Michael, restrain yourself!”
But Volodyovski sprang like a cat toward Kmita. “Is it you, traitor, who let Boguslav carry her off?”
“Be not unjust to me,” said Kmita. “I took her safely to the hetman, having as much care for her as for my own sister. Boguslav seized her, not from me, but from another officer with whom Pan Sapyeha sent her to his own family; his name was Glovbich or something, I do not remember well.”
“Where is he now?”
“He is no longer living, he was slain; so at least Sapyeha’s officers said. I was attacking Boguslav separately, with the Tartars; therefore I know nothing accurately save what I have told you. But noticing your changed face, I see that a similar thing has met us; the same man has wronged us, and since that is the case let us join against him to avenge the wrong and take vengeance in company. He is a great lord and a great knight, and still I think it will be narrow for him in the whole Commonwealth, if he has two such enemies.”
“Here is my hand!” said Volodyovski. “Henceforth we are friends for life and death. Whoever meets him first will pay him for both. God grant me to meet him first, for that I will let his blood out is as sure as that there is Amen in ‘Our Father.’”
Here Pan Michael began to move his mustaches terribly and to feel of his sabre. Zagloba was frightened, for he knew that with Pan Michael there was no joking.