"Kill me!" cried he, "kill me, for I had that man under my sabre and let him go with his life; I gave him his commission. Through me he assembled that squadron with which he will fight now against the country. I saw whom he got: dog-brothers, gallows-birds, robbers, ruffians, such as he is himself. God grant me to meet him once more with the sabre--God! lengthen my life to the death of that traitor, for I swear that he will not leave my hands again." Meanwhile cries, the trample of hoofs, and salvos of musketry were thundering yet with full force; after a time, however, they began to weaken, and an hour later silence reigned in the castle of Kyedani, broken only by the measured tread of the Scottish patrols and words of command. "Pan Michael, look out once more and see what has happened," begged Zagloba. "What for?" asked the little knight. "Whoso is a soldier will guess what has happened. Besides, I saw them beaten,--Kmita triumphs here!" "God give him to be torn with horses, the scoundrel, the hell-dweller! God give him to guard a harem for Tartars!" CHAPTER XVII. Pan Michael was right. Kmita had triumphed. The Hungarians and a part of the dragoons of Myeleshko and Kharlamp who had joined them, lay dead close together in the court of Kyedani. Barely a few tens of them had slipped out and scattered around the castle and the town, where the cavalry pursued them. Many were caught; others never stopped of a certainty till they reached the camp of Sapyeha, voevoda of Vityebsk, to whom they were the first to bring the terrible tidings of the grand hetman's treason, of his desertion to the Swedes, of the imprisonment of the colonels and the resistance of the Polish squadrons. Meanwhile Kmita, covered with blood and dust, presented himself with the banner of the Hungarians before Radzivill, who received him with open arms. But Pan Andrei was not delighted with the victory. He was as gloomy and sullen as if he had acted against his heart. "Your highness," said he, "I do not like to hear praises, and would rather a hundred times fight the enemy than soldiers who might be of service to the country. It seems to a man as if he were spilling his own blood." "Who is to blame, if not those insurgents?" answered the prince. "I too would prefer to send them to Vilna, and I intended to do so. But they chose to rebel against authority. What has happened will not be undone. It was and it will be needful to give an example." "What does your highness think of doing with the prisoners?"