Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/454

424 The old mail went out, and returned soon with the sergeant.

"Have the letters been found?" asked Kmita.

"They have not, Colonel," answered Soroka.

Kmita shook his hands. "Oh, misery, misery! You may go, Soroka. For those letters which you have lost you deserve to hang. You may go. Worthy Kyemlich, have you anything on which to write?"

"I hope to find something," answered the old man.

"Even two leaves of paper and a pen."

The old man vanished through the door of a closet which was evidently a storeroom for all kinds of things, but he searched long. Kmita was walking the while through the room, and talking to himself, —

"Whether I have the letters or not," said he, "the hetman does not know that they are lost, and he will fear lest I publish them. I have him in hand. Cunning against cunning! I will threaten to send them to the voevoda of Vityebsk. That is what I will do. In God is my hope, that the hetman will fear this."

Further thought was interrupted by old Kyemlich, who, coming out of the closet, said, —

" Here are three leaves of paper, but no pens or ink."

"No pens? But are there no birds in the woods here? They may be shot with a gun."

"There is a falcon nailed over the shed."

"Bring his wing hither quickly!"

Kyemlich shot off with all speed, for in the voice of Kmita was impatience, and as it were a fever. He re- turned in a moment with the falcon's wing. Kmita seized it, plucked out a quill, and began to make a pen of it with his dagger.

"It will do!" said he, looking at it before the light; "but it is easier to cut men's heads than quills. Now we need ink."

So saying, he rolled up his sleeve, cut himself deeply in the arm, and moistened the quill in blood.

"Worthy Kyemlich," said he, "leave me."

The old man left the room, and Fan Andrei, began to write at once : —

{{smaller|I renounce the service of your highness, for I will not serve traitors and deceivers. And if I swore on the crucifix not to leave your highness, God will forgive me; and even if he were to damn me, I would rather burn for my error than for open and purposed treason to my country and king. Your highness deceived me, so