Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 2.djvu/34

24 hand; the memory of baffled and useless endeavors weighed on their minds like lead.

"I am waiting for your answer, fathers," said the venerable traitor, dropping his head on his breast.

Kordetski now rose, and with a voice in which there was not the least hesitation or doubt, spoke as if with the vision of a prophet, —

"Your statement that Yan Kazimir has abandoned us, has abdicated and transferred his rights to Karl Gustav, is a calumny. Hope has entered the heart of our banished king, and never has he toiled more zealously than he is toiling at this moment to secure the salvation of the country, to secure his throne, and bring us aid in oppression."

The mask fell in an instant from the face of the traitor; malignity and deceit were reflected in it as clearly as if dragons had crept out at once from the dens of his soul, in which till that moment they had held themselves hidden.

"Whence this intelligence, whence this certainty?" inquired he.

"Whence?" answered the prior, pointing to a great crucifix hanging on the wall. "Go! place your finger on the pierced feet of Christ, and repeat what you have told us."

The traitor began to bend as if under the crushing of an iron hand, and a new dragon, terror, crawled forth to his face.

Kordetski, the prior, stood lordly, terrible as Moses; rays seemed to shoot from his temples.

"Go, repeat!" said he, without lowering his hand, in a voice so powerful that the shaken arches of the council chamber trembled and echoed as if in fear, — "Go, repeat!"

A moment of silence followed; at last the stifled voice of the visitor was heard, —

"I wash my hands—"

"Like Pilate!" finished Kordetski.

The traitor rose and walked out of the room. He hurried through the yard of the cloister, and when he found himself outside the gate, he began to run, almost as if something were hunting him from the cloister to the Swedes.

Zamoyski went to Charnyetski and Kmita, who had not been in the hall, to tell them what had happened.

"Did that envoy bring any good?" asked Charnyetski; "he had an honest face."

"God guard us from such honest men!" answered Zamoyski; "he brought doubt and temptation."