Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/281

Rh "Then give command to shoot me; I will not live! May thunderbolts split me! May devils take me living to hell!"

"Remember, unfortunate, before whom you are speaking."

"Bring me not to desperation, your highness."

"To a prayer I may give ear, but a threat I will not consider."

"I beg, — I implore." Here Pan Andrei threw himself on his knees. "Permit me, your highness, to serve you not from constraint, but with my heart, or I shall go mad."

Radzivill said nothing. Kmita was kneeling; pallor and flushes chased each other like lightning gleams over his face. It was clear that a moment more and he would burst forth in terrible fashion.

"Rise!" said Radzivill.

Pan Andrei rose.

"To defend a friend you are able. I have the test that you will also be able to defend me and will never desert. But God made you of nitre, not of flesh, and have a care that you run not to fluid. I cannot refuse you anything. Listen to me: Stankyevich, Mirski, and Oskyerko I will send to the Swedes at Birji; let the two Skshetuskis and Volodyovski go with them. The Swedes will not tear off their heads there, and it is better that they sit out the war in quiet."

"I thank your highness, my father," cried Andrei.

"Wait," said the prince. "I have respected your oath already too much; now respect mine. I have recorded death in my soul to that old noble, — I have forgotten his name, — that bellowing devil who came here with Skshetuski. He is the man who first called me traitor. He mentioned a bribe; he urged on the others, and perhaps there would not have been such opposition without his insolence." Here the prince struck the table with his fist. "I should have expected death sooner, and the end of the world sooner, than that any one would dare to shout at me, Radzivill, to my face, 'Traitor!' In presence of people! There is not a death, there are not torments befitting such a crime. Do not beg me for him ; it is useless."

But Pan Andrei was not easily discouraged when once he undertook a thing. He was not angry now, nor did he blaze forth. But seizing again the hand of the hetman, he began to cover it with kisses and to entreat with all the earnestness in his soul, —