Kmita pressed him still more.
“But—Panna Billevich—is she there?”
“She is.”
Pan Andrei spoke with still greater difficulty, for he pressed his teeth still more closely.
“And—what has the prince done with her?”
“He has not succeeded in doing anything.”
Silence followed; after a while Kmita removed his lynxskin cap, drew his hand over his forehead and said,—
“I was struck in the battle; blood is leaving me, and I have grown weak.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The sortie had attained its object only in part; though Boguslav’s division had entered the city, the sortie itself had not done great things. It is true that Pan Kotvich’s squadron and Oskyerko’s dragoons had suffered seriously; but the Swedes too had strewn the field with many corpses, and one regiment of infantry, which Volodyovski and Vankovich had struck, was almost destroyed. The Lithuanians boasted that they had inflicted greater loss on the enemy than they had endured themselves. Pan Sapyeha alone suffered internally, because a new “confusion” had met him from which his fame might be seriously affected. The colonels attached to the hetman comforted him as well as they could; and to tell the truth this lesson was useful, for henceforward he had no more such wild banquets, and if there was some pleasure the greatest watchfulness was observed during the time of its continuance. The Swedes were caught the day after. Supposing that the hetman would not expect a repetition of the sortie so soon, they came outside the walls again; but driven from their ground and leaving a number of dead, they returned.