"The hetman of the Cossacks approaches, and he is not a traitor, but a faithful ally, to whom you have pledged assistance not in victory alone," said Hmelnitski.
"Go pass the night in the castle! Go pull the Poles out of the trenches as you promised me!"
"Great Khan of all the hordes!" said Hmelnitski, with a powerful voice, "you are mighty, and except the Sultan the mightiest on earth; you are wise and powerful, but can you send forth an arrow from your bow to the stars, or can you measure the depth of the sea?"
The Khan looked at him with astonishment.
"You cannot," continued Hmelnitski, with still more force; "so can I not measure all the pride and insolence of Yeremi! If I could dream that he would not be terrified at you, O Khan, that he would not be submissive at sight of you, would not beat with his forehead before you, but would raise his insolent hand against your person, shed the blood of your warriors, and insult you, O mighty monarch, as well as the least of your murzas,--if I could have dared to think that, I should have shown contempt to you whom I honor and love."
"Allah!" said the Khan, more and more astonished.
"But I will tell you this," continued Hmelnitski, with increasing assurance in his voice and his manner: "you are great and powerful; nations and monarchs from the east to the west incline before you and call you a lion; Yeremi alone does not fall on his face before your beard. If then you do not rub him out, if you do not bend his neck and ride on his back, your power is in vain, your glory is empty; for they will say that one Polish prince has dishonored the Tsar of the Crimea and received no punishment,--that he is greater, that he is mightier than you."
Dull silence followed; the murzas, the agas, and the mullahs looked on the face of the Khan, as on the sun, holding the breath in their breasts. He had his eyes closed, and was thinking. Hmelnitski was resting on his baton and waiting confidently.
"You have said it," answered the Khan at last. "I will bend the neck of Yeremi; I will sit on his back as on a horse, so it may not be said from the east to the west that an unbelieving dog has disgraced me."
"God is great!" cried the murzas, with one voice.