Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/444

414 star and, frolic with them as a gypsy at a fair, fall upon the Swedes, and ride over their breasts with pure heart and conscience; then he might stand in glory as in sunlight before Olenka, and say, —

"I am no longer infamous, but defensor patriae (a defender of the country); love me, as I love thee."

But what was he now? That insolent spirit, accustomed to self-indulgence, would not confess to a fault altogether at first. It was the Radzivills who (according to him) had pushed him down in this fashion; it was the Radzivills who had brought him to ruin, covered him with evil repute, bound his hands, despoiled him of honor and love.

Here Pan Kmita gnashed his teeth, stretched out his hands toward Jmud, on which Yanush, the hetman, was sitting like a wolf on a corpse, and began to call out in a voice choking with rage, —

"Vengeance! Vengeance!"

Suddenly he threw himself in despair on his knees in the middle of the room, and began to cry, —

"I vow to thee, O Lord Christ, to bend those traitors and gallop over them with justice, with fire, and with sword, to cut them, while there is breath in my throat, steam in my mouth, and life for me in this world! So help me, O Nazarene King! Amen!"

Some kind of internal voice told him in that moment, "Serve the country, vengeance afterward."

Pan Andrei's eyes were flaming, his lips were baked, and he trembled as in a fever; he waved his hands, and talking with himself aloud, walked, or rather ran, through the room, kicked the bed with his feet; at last he threw himself once more on his knees.

"Inspire me, Christ, what to do, lest I fall into frenzy."

At that moment came the report of a gun, which the forest echo threw from pine-tree to pine-tree till it brought it like thunder to the cabin.

Kmita sprang up, and seizing his sabre ran out.

"What is that?" asked he of the soldier standing at the threshold.

"A shot, Colonel." "Where is Soroka?" "He went to look for the letters."

"In what direction was the shot?"