“Are they good in battle? It seems to me that I might take three in each hand and strike with their heads till I was tired.”
“You could surely do so. They are useless in battle. The Swedes bring them for camp servants, and partly as a curiosity. But they are the most skilful of wizards; each of them has at least one devil in his service, and some have five.”
“How do they get such friendship with evil spirits?” asked Kmita, making the sign of the cross.
“Because they wander in night, which with them lasts half a year or more; and you know that it is easier to hold converse with the Devil at night.”
“But have they souls?”
“It is unknown; but I think that they are more in the nature of animals.”
Kmita turned his horse, caught one of the Laplanders by the shoulders, raised him up like a cat, and examined him curiously; then he put him on his feet, and said,—
“If the king would give me one such, I would give orders to have him dried and hung up in the church in Orsha, where, among other curiosities, are ostrich eggs.”
“In Lubni, at the parish church, there were jaws of a whale or even of a giant,” said Volodyovski.
“Let us go on, for something evil will fall on us here,” said Zagloba.