"By the dear God! let not Yatsek hear of this; for his heart would rush straightway to death again, and barely has he begun to breathe now in freedom. He ran away from Pan Gideon's bareheaded; he swore that he would never go back to that mansion, and God guard him from doing so. Women, your grace, are like will-o'-the-wisps which move at night over swamp lands at Yedlinka. If you chase one it flees, if you flee it pursues you. That is the way of it!" "That is a wise statement, which I must drive into Stashko," said Pan Serafin. "Let Yatsek go at the earliest. I have written letters already to various acquaintances, and to dignitaries whom I knew before they were dignitaries, and to warriors the most famous. In those letters your son, too, is recommended as a worthy cavalier; and when his turn comes to go he shall have letters also, though he may not need them, since Yatsek will prepare the way for him. Let the two serve together." "From my whole soul I thank you, my benefactor. Yes! let them serve together, and may their friendship last till their lives end. You have mentioned the regiment of Alexander, the king's son, which is under Zbierhovski. That is a splendid regiment,--perhaps the first among the hussars,--so I should like Stashko to join it; but he said to me: 'The light-horse for six days in the week, and the hussars, as it were, only on Sunday.'" "That is true generally," answered the priest. "Hussars are not sent on scouting expeditions, and it is rare also that they go skirmishing, as it is not fitting that such men should meet all kinds of faces; but when their turn comes, they so press on and trample that others do not spill so much blood in six days as they do on their Sunday. But then, war, not the warriors, command; hence sometimes it happens that hussars perform every-day labor." "You, my benefactor, know that beyond any man." Father Voynovski closed his eyes for a moment, as if wishing to recall the past more in detail; then he raised them, looked at the mead, swallowed one mouthful, then a second, and said,-- "So it was when toward the end of the Swedish war we went to punish that traitor, the Elector, for his treaties with Carolus. Pan Lyubomirski, the marshal, took fire and sword to the outskirts of Berlin. I was then in his own regiment, in which Viktor was lieutenant commander. The Brandenburger[4] met us as best he was able, now with infantry, now with general militia in which were German nobles; and I tell you that at last, on our side, the arms of the hussars and the Cossacks of the household seemed almost as if moving on hinges." "Was it such difficult work then?"