Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/466

436 When the old man turned to the door, Pan Andrei said further, "No one will call me grace nor commandant nor colonel, only you and Babinich."

Kyemlich went out, and an hour later all were sitting on their horses ready to start on the long journey. Kmita dressed in the gray coat of a poor noble, a cap of worn sheepskin, and with a bandaged face, as if after a duel in some inn, was difficult of recognition, and looked really like some poor devil of a noble, strolling from one fair to another. He was surrounded by people dressed in like fashion, armed with common poor sabres, with long whips to drive the horses, and lariats to catch those that might try to escape.

The soldiers looked with astonishment at their colonel, making various remarks, in low tones, concerning him. It was a wonder to them that he was Babinich instead of Pan Kmita, that they were to say you to him; and most of all shrugged his shoulders old Soroka, who, looking at the terrible colonel as at a rainbow, muttered to Biloüs, —

"That you will not pass my throat. Let him kill me, but I will give him, as of old, what belongs to him."

The soldiers knew not that the soul in Pan Andrei had changed as well as his external form.

"Move on!" cried Babinich, on a sudden.

The whips cracked; the riders surrounded the horses, which were huddled together, and they moved on.