The knights were in despair and sank into silence. Zagloba came to himself first.
"Is there no help?" he asked.
"If there is no help, it is our duty to take vengeance," said Volodyovski.
"Oh, if God would only give a general battle!" sighed Pan Longin. "It is said that the Tartars have already crossed the river, and formed a camp in the steppe."
"We cannot leave her," said Zagloba, "the poor thing, without undertaking something for her rescue. I have battered my old bones around the world enough already; it would be better for me now to lie somewhere in a baker's shop quietly, for warmth's sake! But for her I would go again even to Stamboul; I would put on a peasant's coat again and take a lute, on which I cannot look without disgust."
"You are fertile in stratagems; think of something," said Podbipienta.
"A great many plans have gone through my head already. If Prince Dominik had half as many, Hmelnitski would be disembowelled and hanging by the legs on a gibbet. I have already spoken of this to Skshetuski, but you can say nothing to him at present. Sorrow has seared him, and drags him down more than sickness. You see to it that his reason is not disturbed. It often happens that from great grief the mind, like wine, changes until it is completely soured."
"Yes, yes!" answered Pan Longin.
Volodyovski started up impatiently, and asked: "What are your plans then?"
"My plans? Well, first we must find out whether she--poor dear, may the angels guard her from every evil!--is alive yet; and this we can do in two ways,--either we shall find among the Prince's Cossacks trusty and sure men, who will undertake to escape to the Cossacks, mingle among Bogun's men, and find out something from them--"