Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/128

98 For a time it seemed as if Kmita would rush at him with naked hands. He was just ready for the spring, when Volodyovski put his hilt to his own breast, presenting the point. Kmita rushed to take his own sabre, and fell with it again on his terrible opponent.

A loud murmur rose from the circle of spectators, and the ring grew closer and closer. Kmita's Cossacks thrust their heads between the shoulders of the nobles, as if they had lived all their lives in the best understanding with them. Involuntarily shouts were wrested from the mouths of the onlookers; at times an outburst of unrestrained, nervous laughter was heard; all acknowledged a master of masters.

Volodyovski amused himself cruelly like a cat with a mouse, and seemed to work more and more carelessly with the sabre. He took his left hand from behind his back and thrust it into his trousers' pocket. Kmita was foaming at the mouth, panting heavily; at last hoarse words came from his throat through his set lips, —

"Finish — spare the shame!"

"Very well!" replied Volodyovski.

A short terrible whistle was heard, then a smothered cry. At the same moment Kmita threw open his arms, his sabre dropped to the ground, and he fell on his face at the feet of the colonel.

"He lives!" said Volodyovski; "he has not fallen on his back!" And doubling the skirt of Kmita's coat, he began to wipe his sabre.

The nobles shouted with one voice, and in those shouts thundered with increasing clearness: "Finish the traitor! finish him! cut him to pieces!"

A number of Butryms ran up with drawn sabres. Suddenly something wonderful happened, — and one would have said that little Volodyovski had grown tall before their eyes: the sabre of the nearest Butrym flew out of his hand after Kmita's, as if a whirlwind had caught it, and Volodyovski shouted with flashing eyes, —

"Stand back, stand back! He is mine now, not yours! Be off!"

All were silent, fearing the anger of that man; and he said: "I want no shambles here! As nobles you should understand knightly customs, and not slaughter the wounded. Enemies do not do that, and how could a man in a duel kill his prostrate opponent?"