CHAPTER XXVI

"How is that?" inquired Father Voynovski, at the dinner which his comrades gave Yatsek. "We are going in five or six days; thou mightst die in the war; is it worth while to marry before a campaign, instead of waiting for the happy end of it, and then marrying at your leisure?"

His comrades, when they heard these prudent words, burst into laughter; some of them held their sides, others cried in a chorus,--"Oh! it is worth while, benefactor! and just for this reason that he may die is it worth while all the more."

The priest was a little angry, but when the three hundred best men, not excepting Pan Stanislav insisted, and Yatsek would not hear of delay, it had to be as he wanted. Renewed relations with the court, and the favor of the king and queen facilitated the affair very greatly. The queen declared that the coming Pani Tachevski would be under her protection till the war ended, and the king himself promised to be at the marriage, and to think of a fitting dowry when his mind was less occupied. He remembered that many lands of the Sieninskis had pa.s.sed to the Sobieskis, and how his ancestors had grown strong from them, hence he felt under obligations to the orphan, who, besides, had attracted him by her beauty, and also roused his compa.s.sion by her harsh fate, and the evils which she had suffered.

Pan Matchynski, a friend from of old, to Father Voynovski, and also a friend of the king, promised to remind him of the young lady, but after the war; for at that time when on the shoulders of Yan III the fate of all Europe was resting, and of all Christianity, it was not permitted to trouble him with private interests. Father Voynovski was comforted with this promise as much as if Yatsek had then received a good "crown estate," for all knew that word from Pan Matchynski was as sure of fulfilment as had been the words of Zavisha. To speak strictly, he was the author of all the good which had met Panna Sieninski in Cracow; he mentioned Father Voynovski to the king and queen; finally he won for the young lady the queen, who, though capricious in her likings, and fickle, began from the first moment to show her special favor and friendship, which seemed even almost too sudden.

A dispensation from banns was received easily through protection of the court, and the favor of the bishop of Cracow. Even earlier, Pan Serafin had obtained for the young couple handsome lodgings from a Cracow merchant, whose ancestors and those of Pan Serafin had done business in their day, when the latter were living in Lvoff, and importing brocades from the Orient. That was a beautiful lodging, and, because of the mult.i.tude of civil and military dignitaries in the city, so good a one could not be obtained by many a voevoda. Stanislav had determined that Yatsek should pa.s.s those few days before the campaign as it were in a genuine heaven, and he ornamented those lodgings unusually with fresh flowers and tapestry; other comrades helped him with zeal, each lending, the best of what he had, rugs, tapestry, carpets, and such like costly articles, which in wealthy hussar regiments were taken in campaigns even.

In one word, all showed the young couple the greatest good-will, and helped them as each one was able and with what he commanded, except the four Bukoyemskis. They, in the first days after coming to Cracow, went sometimes twice in a day to Stanislav and to Yatsek, and to merchants at the inns with whom officers from the regiment of Prince Alexander drank not infrequently, but afterward the four brothers vanished as if they had fallen into water. Father Voynovski thought that they were drinking in the suburbs, where servants had seen them one evening, and where mead and wine were cheaper than in the city, but immediately after that all report of them vanished. This angered the priest as well as the Tsyprianovitches, for the brothers were bound to Pan Serafin in grat.i.tude; this they should not have forgotten. "They may be good soldiers," said the priest, "but they are giddy heads in whose sedateness we cannot put confidence. Of course they have found some wild company in which they pa.s.s time more pleasantly than with any of us."

This judgment proved inaccurate, however, for on the eve of Yatsek's marriage, when his quarters were filled with acquaintances who had come with good wishes and presents, the four brothers appeared in their very best garments. Their faces were calm, serious, and full of mysteriousness.

"What has happened to you?" asked Pan Serafin.

"We have been tracking a wild beast!" replied Lukash.

"Quiet!" said Mateush, giving him a punch in the side, "Do not tell till the time comes."

Then he looked at the priest, at Pan Serafin and his son, and turning finally to Yatsek, began to clear his throat, like a man who intends to speak in some detail.

"Well, begin right away!" urged his brothers.

But he looked at them with staring eyes, and inquired,--

"How was it?"

"How? Hast thou forgotten?"

"It has broken in me."

"Wait--I know," cried Yan. "It began: 'Our most worthy--' Go on!"

"Our most worthy Pilate," began Mateush.

"Why 'Pilate'?" interrupted the priest. "Perhaps it is Pylades?"

"Benefactor thou hast hit the nail on the head," cried Yan. "As I live, it is Pylades."

"Our worthy Pylades!" began Mateush, now rea.s.sured, "though not the iron Boristhenes, but the gold-bearing Tagus itself were to flow in our native region, we, being exiled through attacks of barbarians, should have nothing but our hearts glowing with friendship to offer thee, neither could we honor this day as it merits by any thank-offering--"

"Thou speakest as if cracking nuts," cried out Lukash excitedly.

But Mateush kept on repeating: "As it merits,--as it merits--" He stopped, looked at his brothers, calling with his eyes for rescue, but they had forgotten entirely that which was to come later.

The Bukoyemskis began now to frown, and the audience to t.i.tter. Seeing this Pan Serafin resolved to a.s.sist them.

"Who composed this speech for you?" asked he.

"Pan Gromyka, of Pan Shumlanski's regiment," said Mateush.

"There it is. A strange horse is more likely to balk and rear than your own beast; so now embrace Yatsek and tell him what ye have to say."

"Surely that is the best way."

And they embraced Yatsek one after another. Then Mateush continued,--"Yatsus! we know that thou art no Pilate, and thou knowest that after losing Kieff regions we are poor fellows, in short we are naked. Here is all that we can give, and accept with thankful heart even this."

Then they handed him some object wound up in a piece of red satin, and at that moment the three younger brothers repeated, with feeling,--

"Accept it, Yatsus, accept! Accept!"

"I accept, and G.o.d repay you," answered Yatsek.

Thus speaking, he put the object on the table, and began to unroll the satin. All at once he started back, and cried,--

"As G.o.d lives, it is the ear of a man!"

"But dost thou know whose ear? Martsian Krepetski's!" thundered the brothers.

"Ah!"

All present were so tremendously astonished that silence followed immediately.

"Tfu!" cried Father Voynovski, at last.

And measuring the brothers, one after the other, with a stern glance, he began at the eldest,--

"Are ye Turks to bring in the ears of beaten enemies? Ye are a shame to this Christian army and all n.o.bles. If Krepetski deserved death a hundred times, if he were even a heretic, or out and out a pagan, it would still be an inexpressible shame to commit such an action. Oh, ye have delighted Yatsek, so that he spits from his mouth that which comes into it. But I tell you that for such a deed ye are to expect not grat.i.tude but contempt, and shame also; for there is no regiment in all the cavalry, or even a regiment in the infantry, which would accept such barbarians as comrades."

At this Mateush stepped out in front of his brothers, and, flaming with rage, said,--

"Here is grat.i.tude for you, here is reward, here is the justice of people, and a judgment. If any layman were to utter this judgment I should cut one ear from him, and also the other to go with it, but since a clerical person speaks thus, let the Lord Jesus judge him, and take the side of the innocent! Your Grace asks: 'Are ye Turks?' but I ask: Do you think that we cut off the ear of a dead man? My born brothers, ye innocent orphans, to what have ye come, that they make Turks of you, enemies of the faith! To what?"

Here his voice quivered, for his grief had exceeded his auger. The three brothers, roused by the unjust judgment, began to cry out with equal sorrow,--

"They make Turks of us!"

"Enemies of the faith!"

"Vile pagans!"

"Then tell, in the name of misfortune, how it was," said the priest.

"Lukash cut off Martsian's ear in a duel."