Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/405

Rh "Again counsel too late, for these cannons are going with, me," said the prince.

"If they are heavy with the stocks, then take them without the stocks and cover them, so it may not be known that you are bringing them. And take these things to Prussia with all speed, avoiding with utmost care those traitors who have caused mutiny in my armv and are ravaging my estates —"

"As to ravaging, they are ravaging! They are pounding them into dough," interrupted the prince anew.

" — ravaging my estates, and are preparing to move against Zabludovo on their way perhaps to the king. With them it is difficult to fight, for they are many; but if they are admitted, and given plenty to drink, and killed in the night while asleep (every host can do that), or poisoned in strong beer, or (which is not difficult in that place) a wild crowd let in to plunder them —"

"Well, that is nothing new!" said Prince Boguslav. "You may journeywith me. Pan Harasimovich."

"There is still a supplement," said the under-starosta. And he read on,

"The wines, if you cannot bring them away (for with us such can be had nowhere), sell them quickly —"

Here Harasimovich stopped and seized himself by the head, —

"For God's sake! those wines are coming half a day's road behind us, and surely have fallen into the hands of that insurgent squadron which was hovering around us. There will be a loss of some thousands of gold pieces. Let your highness give witness with me that you commanded me to wait till the barrels were packed in the wagons."

Harasimovich's terror would have been still greater had he known Pan Zagloba, and had he known that he was in that very squadron. Meanwhile Prince Boguslav smiled and said, —

"Oh, let the wines be to their health! Read on! "— if a merchant cannot be found —"

Prince Boguslav now held his sides from laughter. "He has been found," said he, "but you must sell to him on credit."

"— but if a merchant cannot be found," read Harasimovich, in a complaining voice, "bury it in the ground secretly, so that more