Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/550

520 savage enemy committed; how men were thumbscrewed and tortured to discover money; how the Provincial, Father Branetski, was killed in Poznan itself; and peasants were tortured so fearfully that the hair stood on one's head at the mere thought of it.

"It will come to this everywhere," said the noble; "it is the punishment of God. The last judgment is near. Worse and worse every day, — and salvation from no point."

"It is a marvel to me," said Kmita, "for I am not of these parts and know not how people feel here, that you, gracious gentlemen, being nobles and knightly persons, endure these oppressions in patience."

"With what can we rise up?" answered the noble. "In their hands are the castles, fortresses, cannon, powder, muskets; they have taken from us even fowling-pieces. There was still some hope in Charnyetski; but since he is in prison, and the king in Silesia, who will think of resistance ? There are hands, but nothing in them, and there is no head."

"And there is no hope," added Kmita, in a hollow voice.

Here they dropped the conversation, for a Swedish division came up convoying wagons, small nobles, and a "requisition." It was a wonderful spectacle. Sitting on horses as fat as bullocks, mustached and bearded troopers rode on in a cloud of dust, with their right hands on their hips, with their hats on the sides of their heads, with tens of geese and hens hanging at their saddles. Looking at their warlike and insolent faces, it was easy to see that they felt like lords, gladsome and safe. But the brotherhood of petty nobles walked at the side of the wagons, not only barefooted, but with heads drooping on their bosoms, abused, troubled, frequently urged forward with whips.

On seeing this, Kmita's lips quivered as in a fever, and he fell to repeating to the noble near whom he was riding, —

"Oh, my hands are itching, my hands are itching, my hands are itching!"

"Quiet, in the name of the Merciful God! you will ruin yourself, me, and my little children."

More than once, however. Pan Andrei had before him sights still more marvellous. Behold at times, among parties of horsemen, he saw marching groups, larger or smaller, of Polish nobles, with armed attendants; these nobles were joyous, singing songs, drunk, and with Swedes and Germans on the footing of "lord brother."

"How is this?" asked Kmita. "They are persecuting