“Go, Count, to-day to the fortress,” answered Sadovski, “blow up with powder their greatest gun as Kmita did ours, and I guarantee that, that will spread more terror than a murderous execution of envoys.”
The count turned directly to Miller: “Your worthiness I thought we had come here for counsel and not for amusement.”
“Have you an answer to baseless reproaches?” asked Miller.
“I have, in spite of the joyousness of these gentlemen, who might save their humor for better times.”
“Oh, son of Laertes, famous for stratagems!” exclaimed the Prince of Hesse.
“Gentlemen,” answered the count, “it is universally known that not Minerva but Mars is your guardian deity; but since Mars has not favored you, and you have renounced your right of speech, let me speak.”
“The mountain is beginning to groan, and soon we shall see the small tail of a mouse,” said Sadovski.
“I ask for silence!” said Miller, severely. “Speak, Count, but keep in mind that up to this moment your counsels have given bitter fruit.”
“Which, though it is winter, we must eat like mouldy biscuits,” put in the Prince of Hesse.
“This explains why your princely highness drinks so much wine,” said Count Veyhard; “and though it does not take the place of native wit, it helps you to a happy digestion of even disgrace. But no matter! I know well that there is a party in the fortress which is long desirous of surrender, and that only our weakness on one side and the superhuman stubbornness of the prior on the other keep it in check. New terror will give this party new power; for this purpose we should show that we make no account of the loss of the gun, and storm the more vigorously.”