'Why do you look like a calf going to be slaughtered?' Gwizdała whispered. 'True, you, poor beggar, are going to be slaughtered, that's certain!'
'Oh, my word!' groaned Bartek.
'Are you afraid?' Gwizdała asked.
'Why shouldn't I be afraid?'
The crimson in the sky was growing deeper still, so Gwizdała pointed towards it and went on whispering:
'Do you see that brightness? Do you know, Blockhead, what that is? That's blood. Here's Poland,—our frontier, say,—do you understand? But there in the distance, where it's so bright, that's France itself.'
'And shall we be there soon?'
'Why are you in such a hurry? They say that it's a terribly long way. But never fear, the French will come out to meet us.'
Bartek's Pognębin brain began to work laboriously. After some moments he asked: 'Wojtek.'
'Yes?'