Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/451

Rh us, drove us ninety miles; we hardly escaped with our lives. Oh, Most Holy Mother! we could not find either your grace or your men. They drove us thus far into these pine-woods, into misery and hunger, to this cabin and these swamps. God is kind that your grace is living and in health, though, I see, wounded. Maybe we can nurse you, and put on herbs; and those sons of mine went to roll off the logs, and they have disappeared. What are the rogues doing? They are ready to take out the door and get at the mead. Hunger here and misery; nothing more! We live on mushrooms; but for your grace there will be something to drink and a bite to eat. Those men took the horses from us, robbed us, — there is no denying that! And they deprived us of service with your grace. We shall not have a bit of bread for old age, unless your grace takes us back into service."

"That may happen too," answered Kmita.

Now the two sons of the old man came in, — Kosma and Damian, twins, big fellows, awkward, with enormous heads completely overgrown with an immensely tliick bush of hair, stiff as a brush, sticking out unevenly around the ears, forming hair-screws and fantastic tufts on their skulls. When they came in they stood near the door, for in presence of Kmita they dared not sit down; and Damian said, —

"The cellar is cleared."

"'Tis well," answered old Kyemlich, " I will go to bring mead."

Here he looked significantly at his sons.

"And Zolotarenko's men took the horses," said he, with emphasis; and went out of the cabin.

Kmita glanced at the two who stood by the door, and who looked as if they had been hewn out of logs roughly with an axe.

"What are you doing now?"

"We take horses!" answered the twins at the same time.

"From whom?"

"From whomsoever comes along."

"But mostly?"

"From Zolotarenko's men."

"That is well, you are free to take from the enemy; but if you take from your own you are robbers, not nobles. What do you do with those horses?"

"Father sells them in Prussia."

"Has it happened to you to take from the Swedes?