Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/521

Rh Will the Swedish King give him then Lithuania, or even White Russia? Will he not prefer to pacify an eternally hungry neighbor with some eastern slice of the Commonwealth, so as to have his own hands free in the remnants of Poland?

These were the questions which tormented continually the soul of Prince Yanush. Days and nights did he pass in disquiet. He conceived that Pontus de la Gardie would not have dared to treat him so haughtily, almost insultingly, had he not thought that the king would confirm such a manner of action, or what is worse, had not his instructions been previously prepared.

"As long as I am at the head of some thousands of men," thought Radzivill, "they will consider me; but when money fails, when my hired regiments scatter, what then?"

And the revenues from his enormous estates did not come in. An immense part of them, scattered throughout Lithuania and far away to Polesie or Kieff, lay in ruins; those in Podlyasye the confederates had plundered completely. At times it seemed to the prince that he would topple over the precipice; that from all his labor and plotting only the name traitor would remain to him, — nothing more.

Another phantom terrified him — the phantom of death, which appeared almost every night before the curtain of his bed, and beckoned with its hand, as if wishing to say to him, "Come into darkness, cross the unknown river."

Had he been able to stand on the summit of glory, had he been able to place on his head, even for one day, for one hour, that crown desired with such passion, he might meet that awful and silent phantom with unterrified eye. But to die and leave behind evil fame and the scorn of men, seemed to that lord, who was as proud as Satan himself, a hell during life.

More than once then, when he was alone or with his astrologer, in whom he placed the greatest trust, did he seize his temples and repeat with stifled voice, —

"I am burning, burning, burning!"

Under these conditions he was preparing for the campaign against Podlyasye, when the day before the march it was announced that Prince Boguslav had left Taurogi.

At the mere news of this. Prince Yanush, even before he saw his cousin, revived as it were; for that Boguslav brought