They had scarcely a thought then for Martsian and his rioting company, or for barriers and engagements on the roadway. All that seemed to them now something trivial, vain, and unworthy of attention. And if whole legions had stood in their way, they would have shot over them like a tempest, they would have ridden across them just in passing, put them under the bellies of their horses, and rushed along farther. Their native leonine impulses were roused, and warlike, knightly blood had begun to play in them with such vigor that if command had been given those four men to charge the whole bodyguard of the Sultan, they would not have hesitated one instant. But similar feelings, and founded, moreover, on old recollections, filled the hearts of Pan Serafin and Father Voynovski. The priest had passed the flower of his life on the field with a lance in his hand, or a sabre. He remembered whole series of reverses and victories, he remembered the dreadful rebellion of Hmelnitski, Joltevody, Korsun, Pilavtse, Zbaraj the renowned, and the giant battle of Berestechko. He remembered the Swedish war, with its never-ending record of struggles and the attack of Rakotsi. He had been in Denmark, for a triumphing people, not satisfied with crushing and driving out Sweden, had sent in pursuit of it Charnyetski's invincible regiments to the borders of a distant ocean; he had helped to defeat Dolgoruki and Hovanski; he had known the noblest knights and greatest men of the period; he had been a pupil of Pan Michael the immortal; he had been enamoured of slaughter, storms, battles, and bloodshed, but all that had lasted only till personal misfortune had broken his spirit, and he took on himself holy orders. From that day he changed altogether, and when, turning to people in front of the altar, he said to them: "Peace be with you;" he believed himself uttering Christ's own commandment, and that every war, as opposed to that commandment, "is abhorrent" to Heaven, a sin against mercy, a stain on Christian nations. But a war against Turks was the one case which he excepted. "God," said he, "put the Polish people on horseback, and turned their breasts eastward; by that same act He showed them His will and their calling. He knew why He chose us for that position, and put others behind our shoulders; hence, if we wish to fulfil His command and our mission with worthiness, we must face that vile sea, and break its waves with our bosoms."