It was broad day-light when they came to set us at liberty, and inform us, that Dourlinski was at leisure and wished to see us. We accordingly presented ourselves before him with great confidence; and we were introduced to a man of about sixty years of age, whose reception was blunt, and whose manners were repulsive. He demanded who we were. “My brother and myself,” replied I, “belong to Count Pulaski. My master has entrusted me with a secret commission to you. My brother accompanies me on another account. Before I explain, I must be in private, for I am charged not to speak but to you alone.”
“It is very well,” replies Dourlinski: “your brother may retire, and you also,” addressing himself to his servants; “begone! As to him (pointing to a person who was his confident), he must remain, and you may speak any thing before him.”
“Pulaski has sent me.”————“I see very well that he has sent you,” says the palatine, interrupting me——“to demand of you—” “What?”————“news of his daughter.”—“News of his daughter! Did Pulaski say so?”————“Yes my lord, he said that his daughter was here.”---I perceived that Dourlinski instantly grew pale; he then looked towards his confident, and surveyed me for some time in silence.
“You astonish me,” rejoins he at length. “In confiding a secret of this importance to you, it necessarily follows that your master must have been very imprudent.”
“No more than you, my lord, for have not you also a confident? Grandees would be much to be pitied if they could not rely upon any of their domestics. Pulaski has charged me to inform you, that Lovsinski has already searched through a great part of Poland, and that he will undoubtedly visit these cantons.”
“If he dares to come here,” replies he with great vivacity, “I will provide a lodging for him, which he shall inhabit for some time. Do you know this Lovsinski?”
“I have seen him at my master’s house in Warsaw.”—“They say he is handsome?”
“He is well made, and about my size.”
“His person?---is prepossessing; it is————”
“He is a wretch,” adds he, interrupting me in a great passion———“O that he were but to fall into my hands!”