"Oh, he is an old sot who used to hang around our ataman in Chigirin and pretend to be his best friend."
"He'll hang yet!" shouted Burlai.
"I'm a fool if I don't cut the ears off that puppy!" muttered Zagloba.
"They so cut him up," continued Jendzian, "that another in his place would have been eaten by the crows long ago; but there is a horned soul in our ataman, and he recovered, though he barely dragged himself to Vlodava; and there he would have failed surely but for us. We helped him off to Volynia, where our people have the upper hand, and he sent us here for the princess."
"These women will be the death of him," muttered Burlai. "I told him that long ago. Would it not have been better for him to take a girl in Cossack fashion, and then a stone around her neck and into the water, as we did in the Black Sea?"
Here Volodyovski scarcely restrained himself, so wounded was he in his feeling for the sex; but Zagloba laughed, and said: "Surely it would have been better."
"But you were old friends," said Burlai, "you did not desert him in need; and you, boy [here he turned to Jendzian], you are the best of them all, for I saw in Chigirin how you nursed and cared for our falcon. I am your friend for that. Tell me what you want,--men or horses? I'll give them to you, so that no harm may meet you on the return."
"We do not need men," said Zagloba, "for we shall go through our own country and among our own people, and God keep us from evil adventure! It is worse with a large party than with a small one; but some of the swiftest horses would be of service."
"I'll give you such that the ponies of the Khan would not overtake them."
Jendzian now spoke up, not to lose an opportunity: "And give us a little money, Ataman, for we have none, and beyond Bratslav a measure of oats is a thaler."