"Well—is she married? Speak! how strange thou art! Say—what is she now?"
"She has not eaten for two days."
"How is that?"
"For a long time not one of the citizens has had a piece of bread; it is long since they were all eating earth."
Andrew remained speechless.
"The lady saw thee among the Zaporoghians from the town wall. She said to me, 'Go, tell the knight that if he recollects me he will come to me; and if not, that he will give thee a morsel of bread for my old mother, for I cannot see my mother die before my eyes. Let me rather die first and she afterwards. Entreat him—embrace his knees and his feet. He, too, may have an old mother, for her sake he must give a bit of bread.'"
Many and different were the feelings that awakened and stirred in the young Cossack's breast.
"But how art thou here? How didst thou come?"
"By a subterranean passage."
"Is there any subterranean passage, then?"