"Gentlemen," inquired he, "your pouches are not wet?"
"Dry, serene prince!" answered Skshetuski.
"That's right! dismount for me, advance through the water to those machines, put powder to them and fire them. Go quietly! Sobieski will go with you."
"According to orders!" replied Skshetuski.
The prince now caught sight of the drenched Zagloba. "You asked to go out on a sally; go now with these," said he.
"Ah, devil, here is an overcoat for you!" muttered Zagloba. "This is all that was wanting."
Half an hour later, two divisions of knights, two hundred and fifty men, wading to their waists in the water with sabres in hand, hastened to those terrible moving towers of the Cossacks, standing about half a furlong from the trench. One division was led by that "lion of lions," Marek Sobieski, starosta of Krasnostav, who would not hear of remaining in the trench; the other by Skshetuski. Attendants followed the knights with buckets of tar, torches, and powder. They went as quietly as wolves stealing in the dark night to a sheepfold.
Volodyovski went, as a volunteer with Skshetuski, for Pan Michael loved such expeditions more than life. He tripped along through the water, joy in his heart and sabre in hand. At his side was Podbipienta, with his drawn sword, conspicuous above all, for he was two heads higher than the tallest. Among them Zagloba pushed on panting, while he muttered with vexation and imitated the words of the prince,--
"'You asked to go on a sally; go now with these.' All right! A dog wouldn't go to a wedding through such water as this. If ever I advise a sally in such weather may I never drink anything but water while I live! I am not a duck, and my belly isn't a boat. I have always held water in horror, and what kind of water is this in which peasant carrion is steeping?"
"Quiet!" said Volodyovski.