"How can that be? how can that be?" asked Skshetuski, feverishly.
"If I lie, may a thunderbolt strike me!" said Zagloba, with importance, "for this is a sacred thing. Listen to what Bogun said when he wished to jeer at me before I settled him at last. 'Did you think,' said he, 'that you brought her to Bar for a peasant; that I was a peasant to constrain her by force; that I was not to be married in Kieff in the church, and monks sing for me, and three hundred candles burn for me,--me, an ataman, a hetman!' And he stamped his feet and threatened me with his knife, for he thought he was frightening me; but I told him to frighten the dogs!"
Skshetuski had now recovered himself. His monk's face lighted up; gladness and uncertainty played on it again. "Where is she now, where is she?" he asked hurriedly. "If you have found that out, then you have come from heaven."
"He did not tell me that, but two words are enough for a wise head. Remember, gentlemen, he jeered me all the while till I planted him, and then he went in. 'First I'll take you,' said he, 'to Krívonos, and then I would invite you to the wedding; but now there is war, so it will not come off soon.' Think of it, gentlemen,--'not come off soon;' therefore we have plenty of time. Secondly, think,--'first to Krívonos, then to the wedding;' therefore in no way is she at the camp of Krívonos, but somewhere farther, where the war has not reached."
"You are a man of gold," said Volodyovski.
"I thought at first," said the delightfully flattered Zagloba, "that maybe he had sent her to Kieff; but no, for he said he would go for the wedding to Kieff with her. If they will go, it means that she is not there; and he is too shrewd to take her there now, for if Hmelnitski should push into Red Russia, Kieff could be taken easily by the Lithuanian forces."
"Surely, surely!" cried Pan Longin. "Now, as God is just to me, no man could change minds with you."
"But I shouldn't change with every one, lest I might get soup instead of reason,--a thing which might easily happen among the Lithuanians."
"Oh, he is beginning again!" said Pan Longin.
"Well, since she is not with Krívonos nor in Kieff, where is she?"