"Like a Cossack,--in Cossack fashion."
"Oh, I see there is something ahead! But no more of this! One thing I will tell you, that the place is within Vishnyevetski's rule and Lubni is not distant. Pan Skshetuski wrote to the princess to take refuge there with the maiden,--which means that they are under the prince's protection; and the prince is a fierce lion--"
"The Khan is a lion, and I rushed up to his throat and held the light to his eyes."
"What, you crazy brain! do you wish to declare war against the prince?"
"Hmelnitski has rushed on the hetmans. What do I care for your prince?"
Pan Zagloba became still more alarmed. "Shu! to the devil with this! This smells simply of rebellion. Vis armata, raptus puellæ, and rebellion,--this comes to the executioner, the rope, and the gallows. A splendid six-in-hand, you may go high in it, if not far. The Kurtsevichi will defend themselves."
"What of that? Either I must perish, or they. I would have given my life for the Kurtsevichi, since I held them as brothers, and the old princess as a mother. Into her eyes I looked as a dog looks! And when the Tartars caught Vassily, who went to the Crimea and rescued him? I! I loved them and served them as a slave, for I thought that I was earning the maiden. And for this they sold me like a slave to an evil fate and misfortune. They drove me away; but I will go now, and first I will bow down to them in return for the bread and salt that I have eaten in their house, and I will pay them in Cossack fashion. I will go, for I know my road."
"And where will you go, when you begin with the prince,--to the camp of Hmelnitski?"
"If they had given me the girl, I should have been your Polish brother, your friend, your sabre, your sworn soul, your dog. I should have taken my Cossacks, called others together in the Ukraine, then moved against Hmelnitski, and my own brothers, the Zaporojians, and torn them with hoofs. Did I wish reward for this? No! I should have taken the girl and gone beyond the Dnieper, to the steppes of God, to the wild meadows, to the quiet waters. That would have been enough for me; but now--"
"Now you have become enraged."