Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/322

292 "Ah, Pan Michael is working," said Zagloba. "He is not big, but he bites like a viper. They are shelling out those devils from over the sea like peas. I would rather be there than here, and through you I must listen here. Is this your gratitude? Is this the act of a respectable relative?"

"What have I to be grateful for?" asked Roh.

"For this, that a traitor is not ploughing with you, as with an ox, — though you are grandly fitted for ploughing, since you are stupid and strong. Understand me? Ai! it is getting hotter and hotter there. Do you hear? That must be the Swedes who are bawling like calves in a pasture." Here Zagloba became serious, for he was a little disturbed; on a sudden he asked, looking quickly into Pan Roh's eyes, —

"To whom do you wish victory?"

"To ours, of course."

"See that! And why not to the Swedes?"

"I would rather pound them. Who are ours, are ours!

"Conscience is waking up in you. But how could you take your own blood to the Swedes?"

"For I had an order."

"But now you have no order?"

"True."

"Your superior is now Pan Volodyovski, no one else."

"Well, that seems to be true."

"You must do what Pan Volodyovski commands."

"I must."

"He commands you now to renounce Hadzivill for the future, and not to serve him, but the country."

"How is that?" asked Pan Roh, scratching his head.

"A command!" cried Zagloba.

"I obey!" said Kovalski.

"That is right! At the first chance you will thrash the Swedes."

"If it is the order, it is the order!" answered Kovalski, and breathed deeply, as if a great burden had fallen from his breast.

Zagloba was equally well satisfied, for he had his own views concerning Kovalski. They began then to listen in harmony to the sounds of the battle which came to them, and listened about an hour longer, until all was silent.

Zagloba was more and more alarmed. "If they have not succeeded?" asked he.