"'Ah!' he said, 'you wanted to talk to me; but I see it's I who'll talk to you. Perhaps,' he said, 'it's as well you've come to me; just listen to good advice. It's plain you're not doing yourself much good with all this running about, for I hear you run round the master's house like a dog. Now, I can fix you up in a business which will bring you in more than two years' wages. The German colonist——'
"I didn't hear any more, and it's plain he didn't look at me when he said this; for if he'd looked, the idiot! he'd have run away. The blood rushed to my head, left it, and rushed back again. I roared like a wild beast, and sprang on them. I couldn't speak, but I had terrific strength. I twisted his hands together on to his back with my left hand, as if they were string, took him by the middle, and lifted him up. Walek's hand I squeezed so hard that the bones cracked, and he stood there as lifeless as a stone.
"I let him go, and took my knife, which I always carried in the leg of my boot, and handed it to Walek. 'Hit here!' I shouted, and held Mateus' left side towards him. He had to strike. The knife was sharp, and went in up to the handle. The blood poured out in a stream.
"They took me up the very next day.
"'Was it you?' they asked.
"'Yes.'
"'Why did you do it?' they asked. I told them. They didn't ask any more; I was condemned for life."
I looked at Maciej. He was as pale as a corpse, whiter than the white wall against which he was sitting. He did not move his hands, but his fingers twitched convulsively.
I felt sorry that I had induced him to live through that terrible scene once more, and looked into his eyes, reproaching myself. But as I looked I turned pale myself; his eyes were pure and bright as a spring of water, calm and innocent as the eyes of a child.