"Personal safety," lie stammered, "why, is there any danger?"
"A great deal," said Hajek, confidently.
Kapronski's face turned white, and red, and ashy grey. "I shall have an escort," he faltered; "but if Taras should attack us on the road, I am a dead man! There is no help----"
His voice positively failed him.
"None whatever," assented the mandatar. "Stop--yes, there is," he added, a sudden thought having flashed through him--indeed a capital thought, so simple and so clever withal that he was surprised it should not have presented itself before. "There is!" he said.
"Is there?" returned Kapronski, eagerly.
"Yes, indeed! a sure means of saving yourself and me, and all honest folks from this cut-throat. Let me remind you that his wife and children are still at his farm. It will be natural, then, to billet most of the soldiers upon her. But this is not enough! You must tell her that she will have to answer for it on the gallows if her husband hurts a hair of the mandatar's head--be sure and say the mandatar's! She is in communication with him, no doubt, and----"
"But this would be illegal!"
"Well, that is for you to judge. I only give you a hint or two, out of kindness. It is you who have to go to Zulawce, not I!"
"Ah!" groaned Kapronski, "if it should get known, it would cost me my place."