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276 "Perchance even now, who knows? Perchance I have sinned anew! Perchance I have hastened too much the insurrection, exceeding the commands of my generals. The thought that the house of the Soplicas should be the first to take up arms, and that my kindred should raise the first banner of the Warhorse in Lithuania!—That thought ... seems pure.—

"You have longed for vengeance? You have it now, for you have been the instrument of God's punishment! With your sword God cut short my plans. You have tangled the thread of the plot that had been spun for so many years! The great aim that absorbed my whole life, my last worldly feeling upon earth, which I fondled and cherished like my dearest child—that you have slain before the father's eyes, and I have forgiven you! You!—"

"Even so may God forgive you too!" interrupted the Warden. "Father Jacek, if you are now about to take the sacrament, remember that I am no Lutheran or schismatic! I know that whoever saddens the last moments of a dying man, commits sin. I will tell you something that will surely comfort you. When my late master had fallen wounded, and I was kneeling by him, bending over his breast; when, wetting my sword in his wound, I vowed vengeance, my lord shook his head and stretched out his hand towards the door, towards the place where you were standing, and drew a cross in the air; he could not speak, but he made a sign that he forgave his murderer. I understood well, but I was so furious with rage that I have never said even a word of that cross."

Here the sufferings of the sick man made further speech impossible and a long hour of silence followed. They were awaiting the priest. The thunder of hoofs