Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/434

404 out weapons, and in Kmita's hands, had freed himself from those hands; not only that, he had overthrown Kmita, conquered his soldiers, and terrified them so that they ran away in fear of his return. That was a wonder of wonders, and Soroka lost his head pondering over it. To his thinking, anything might come to pass in the world rather than this, that a man might be found who could ride over Kmita.

"Has our fortune then ended?" muttered he to himself, gazing around in wonder.

It was not long since with eyes shut he followed Pan Kmita to Hovanski's quarters surrounded by eighty thousand men; now at the thought of that long-haired prince with lady's eyes and a painted face, superstitious terror seized him, and he knew not what to do. The thought alarmed him, that to-morrow or the next day he would have to travel on highways where the terrible prince himself or his pursuers might meet him. This was the reason why he had gone from the road to the dense forest, and at present wished to stay in that cabin until pursuers were deluded and wearied.

But since even that hiding-place did not seem to him safe for other reasons, he wished to discover what course to take; therefore he ordered the soldiers to stand guard at the door and the windows, and said to the pitch-maker, —

"Here, man, take a lantern and come with me."

"I can light the great mighty lord only with a pitch-torch, for we have no lantern."

"Then light the torch; if thou burn the shed and the horses, it is all one to me."

After such words a lantern was found right away. Soroka commanded the fellow to go ahead, and followed himself with a pistol in his hand.

"Who live in this cabin?" asked he on the road.

"Men live here."

"What are their names?"

"That is not free for me to say."

"It seems to me, fellow, that thou'lt get a bullet in thy head." "My master," answered the pitch-maker, "if I had told in a lie any kind of name, you would have to be satisfied." "True! But are there many of those men?"

"There is an old one, two sons, and two servants."

"Are they nobles?"