Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/302

272 heads, as you say, is no great consolation, God knows. Everything so combines that it would be better not to live ; now another war, a civil war, will break out, that will be final ruin. What reason have I, old man, to look on these things?"

"Or I, who remember other times?" said Stankyevich.

"You should not say that, gentlemen; for the mercy of God is greater than the rage of men, and his almighty hand may snatch us from the whirlpool precisely when we least expect."

"Holy are these words," said Pan Yan. "And to us, men from under the standard of the late Prince Yeremi, it is grievous to live now, for we were accustomed to victory ; and still one likes to serve the country, if the Lord God would give at last a leader who is not a traitor, but one whom a man might trust with his whole heart and soul."

"Oi! true, true!" said Pan Michael. "A man would fight night and day."

"But I tell you, gentlemen, that this is the greatest despair," said Mirski; "for every one wanders as in darkness, and asks himself what to do, and uncertainty stifles him, like a nightmare. I know not how it is with you, but mental disquiet is rending me. And when I think that I cast my baton at the feet of the hetman, that I was the cause of resistance and mutiny, the remnants of my gray hair stand on my head from terror. So it is! But what is to be done in presence of open treason? Happy are they who do not need to give themselves such questions, and seek for answers in their souls."

"A leader, a leader; may the merciful Lord give a leader!" said Stankyevich, raising his eyes toward heaven.

"Do not men say that the voevoda of Vityebsk is a wonderfully honest man?" asked Pan Stanislav.

"They do," replied Mirski; "but he has not the baton of grand or full hetman, and before the king clothes him with the office of hetman, he can act only on his own account. He will not go to the Swedes, or anywhere else; that is certain."

"Pan Gosyevski, full hetman, is a captive in Kyedani."

"Yes, for he is an honest man," said Oskyerko. "When news of that came to me, I was distressed, and had an immediate foreboding of evil."

Pan Michael fell to thinking, and said after a while: "I was in Warsaw once, and went to the king's palace.