“Where did you serve before?”
“With the voevoda of Vilna.”
“And did you leave him with the others? You betrayed him and me.”
“I was bound to my own king, not to your Royal Grace.”
The king said nothing; all foreheads were frowning, eyes began to bore into Pan Michael; but he stood calmly, merely moving his mustaches time after time.
All at once the king said,—
“It is pleasant for me to know such a famous cavalier. Kanneberg passed among us as incomparable in hand-to-hand conflict. You must be the first sabre in the kingdom?”
“In universo (In the universe)!” said Zagloba.
“Not the last,” answered Volodyovski.
“I greet you, gentlemen, heartily. For Pan Charnyetski I have a real esteem as for a great soldier, though he broke his word to me, for he ought to be sitting quietly till now in Syevej.”