"My lord, it's we; you already know all about us; and his lordship, the count, will thank you still more." "Let them go; and a hundred devils to the fiend's mother! Let no one else pass, do not take off your swords, and do not, any of you, dare to roll on the floor like dogs." The continuation of the eloquent order was lost to our travellers. "It's we; it's I; we are yours!" said Yankel to every one whom he met. "May we go in?" he asked, of one of the sentries, as they came at last to the end of the passage. "Yes, you may; but I do not know if you are allowed to pass into the gaol. Jan is no longer on duty, there is another one there now," answered the sentry. "Ah! ah!" muttered the Jew; "this looks bad, my dear lord!" "Go on," said Tarass, in a stubborn voice. The Jew obeyed. At the door of a dungeon stood a heyduke,[41] with mustachios, separated into three different stories: the upper story went backwards, the middle one straight forwards, and the last downwards, which gave the heyduke very nearly the appearance of a cat. The Jew bent his back as much as he could, and came near him, stealing along sideways. "Your lordship! my gracious lord!" "Dost thou speak to me, Jew?" "To you, gracious lord!" "Ahem!--and I am nothing but a heyduke," said the thrice-mustachioed face, with eyes glittering with delight. "By Heavens! I took you for the Voevoda himself! really now, I did." And the Jew began to shake his head and to stretch out his fingers. "Ah! what an air of importance! By Heavens! the air of a colonel, quite a colonel! A hair's breadth more, and it would be a colonel's. Your worship ought only to mount a horse as swift as a fly, and command regiments!" The heyduke curled the nether story of his mustachios, and his eye assumed quite an expression of gaiety. "What a set of men you military men are," continued the Jew. "Oh dear me! what a good set of men. And the braidings and the facings--all these make them glitter like the sun! The girls, as soon as they behold a military man--ah! ah!" And the Jew again shook his head. The heyduke curled his upper mustachios, and gave vent to a sound something like the neighing of a horse. "Will my lord grant me a favour?" said the Jew. "Here is a prince, come from foreign lands, who wishes to look at the Cossacks. He has never yet, as long as he has lived, seen what kind of men these Cossacks are." The arrival of foreign counts and barons was no uncommon thing in Poland. They were frequently attracted, merely by curiosity, to see this almost half-Asiatic corner of Europe--Muscovy and Ukraine being then reputed to form part of Asia. So the heyduke, after making a respectful bow, thought fit to add some words of his own accord. "I do not know, your grace, what you want to look at them for," said he; "they are not men, but dogs. Their creed, even, is such a one that nobody respects it."