"Are you so squeamish? But a truce to this! I will tell you, if 'tis your wish to go hence, I have an office for you and a very honorable one. Ganhoff is creeping into my eyes for this office, and talks of it every day. I have been thinking to give it to him. Still 'tis impossible to do so, for I must have a man of note, not with a trifling name, not a foreigner, but a Pole, who by his very person will bear witness that not all men have left me, that there are still weighty citizens on my side. You are just the man; you have so much good daring, are more willing to make others bend than to bow down yourself." "What is the task?" "To go on a long journey." "I am ready to-day!" "And at your own cost, since I am straitened for money. Some of my revenues the enemy have taken; others, our own people are ravaging, and no part comes in season; besides, all the army which I have here, has fallen to my expense. Of a certainty the treasurer, whom I have now behind a locked door, does not give me a copper,--first, because he has not the wish to do so; second; because he has not the coin. Whatever public money there is, I take without asking; but is there much? From the Swedes you will get anything sooner than money, for their hands tremble at sight of a farthing." "Your highness need not explain. If I go, it will be at my own expense." "But it will be necessary to appear with distinction, without sparing." "I will spare nothing." The hetman's face brightened; for in truth he had no ready money, though he had plundered Vilna not long before, and, besides, he was greedy by nature. It was also true that the revenues from his immense estates, extending from Livonia to Kieff and from Smolensk to Mazovia, had really ceased to flow in, and the cost of the army increased every day. "That suits me," said he; "Ganhoff would begin at once to knock on my coffers, but you are another kind of man. Hear, then, your instructions." "I am listening with care." "First, you will go to Podlyasye. The road is perilous; for the confederates, who left the camp, are there and acting against me. How you will escape them is your own affair. Yakub Kmita might spare you; but beware of Horotkyevich, Jyromski, and especially of Volodyovski with his Lauda men." "I have been in their hands already, and no evil has happened to me." "That is well. You will go to Zabludovo, where Pan Harasimovich lives; you will order him to collect what money he can from my revenues, the public taxes and whencesoever it is possible, and send it to me,--not to this place, however, but to Tyltsa, where there are effects of mine already. What goods or property he can pawn, let him pawn; what he can get from the Jews, let him take. Secondly, let him think how to ruin the confederates. But that is not your mission; I will send him instructions under my own hand. You will give him the letter and move straight to Tykotsin, to Prince Boguslav--"