Pan Andrei was as if stunned for the moment, but recovered quickly. He dropped his sabre on its pendant, made the sign of the cross, sprang from his horse, and seizing the hilt, again approached the prince.
He was terrible; for pale as a sheet from emotion, his lips were pressed, and inexorable hatred was in his face.
Behold his mortal enemy, and such a powerful one, lying now at his feet in blood, still alive and conscious, but conquered, and not with foreign weapons nor with foreign aid.
Boguslav looked at him with widely opened eyes, watching carefully every move of the victor; and when Kmita stood there above him, he cried quickly,—
“Do not kill me! Ransom!”
Kmita, instead of answering, stood with his foot on Boguslav’s breast, and pressed with all his power; then he placed the point of his sabre on the prince’s throat so that the skin yielded under the point,—he only needed to move his hand, to press more firmly. But he did not kill him at once. He wished to sate himself yet with the sight, and make the death of his enemy more grievous. He transfixed Boguslav’s eyes with his own eyes, and stood above him, as a lion stands above an overthrown buffalo.
The prince, from whose forehead blood was flowing more and more copiously, so that the whole upper part of his head was as if in a pool, spoke again, but now with a greatly stifled voice, for the foot of Pan Andrei was crushing his breast,—
“The maiden—listen—”
Barely had Pan Andrei heard these words when he took his foot from Boguslav’s breast, and raised his sword. “Speak!” said he.
But Boguslav only breathed deeply for a time; at last, with a voice now stronger, he said,—