"Stashko is well, benefactor; he and Pan Yatsek are as bright as two suns." "Glory to God! glory to God! Thanks for the good news. Have you no letter?" "He wrote, but did not give us the letter. It might be lost," said he. "Are you not hungry? Oh, what a condition! It is as if I had four men risen from the dead now before me." "We are not hungry, for entertainment is ready at the house of every noble--but we are unfortunate." "Sit down. Drink something warm, but while the servants are heating it tell me what happened. Where have you been?" "In Warsaw," said Mateush, "but that is a vile city." "Why so?" "It is swarming with gamblers and drunkards, and on Long Street and in the Old City at every step there is a tavern." "Well, what?" "One son of a such a one persuaded Lukash to play dice with him. Would to God that the pagans had impaled the wicked scoundrel on a stake ere that happened." "And he cheated?" "He won all that Lukash had, and then all that we had. Desperation took hold of us, and we wanted to win the coin back, but he won further our horse with a saddle and with pistols in the holsters. Then, I say to your grace, that Lukash wished to stab himself. What was to be done? How were we to help comforting a brother? We sold the second horse, so that Lukash might have a companion to walk with him." "I understand what happened," remarked Pan Serafin. "When we became sober there was still keener suffering; two horses were gone, and we had greater need of consolation." "So ye consoled yourselves till the fourth horse was gone?" "Till the fourth horse. We sinned, we sinned!" repeated the contrite brothers. "But was that the end?" continued Pan Serafin. "How the end, our father and special benefactor? We met a deceiver, one Poradski, who scoffed at us. 'So this is the way they shear fools!' says he. 'I will take you,' says he, 'as my serving men, for I am making the levy for a regiment.' Lukash cried out that the man was exposing us to ridicule, and when he would not stop Lukash slashed him on the snout with a sabre. Poradski's friends sprang to help him, and we to help Lukash, and we cut till the marshal's guard whirled in and went at us. And we yielded only when the others fell to shouting: 'Gracious gentlemen, they are attacking freedom, and injuring the Commonwealth in our persons.' That is how it happened, and God blessed us immediately, for we wounded eight attendants in a flash, and three of these mortally; the others were at our feet,--there were five of them." Pan Serafin seized his head, and Marek continued,--