Next came Ranitski, whose family had arms,--Dry Chambers (Suche Komnaty). He was born in the province of Mstislavsk, from which he was an outlaw for killing two noblemen, landowners. One he slew in a duel, the other he shot without an encounter. He had no estate, though he inherited his step-mother's land on the death of his father. War saved him, too, from the executioner. He was an incomparable hand-to-hand sword-slasher. The third in order was Rekuts-Leliva, on whom blood did not weigh, save the blood of the enemy. But he had played away, drunk away his substance. For the past three years he had clung to Kmita. With him came the fourth, also from Smolensk, Pan Uhlik, under sentence of death and dishonor for breaking up a court. Kmita protected him because he played beautifully on the flageolet. Besides them was Pan Kulvyets-Hippocentaurus, in stature the equal of Kokosinski, in strength even his superior; and Zend, a horse-trainer, who knew how to imitate wild beasts and all kinds of birds,--a man of uncertain descent, though claiming to be a noble of Courland; being without fortune he trained Kmita's horses, for which he received an allowance. These then surrounded the laughing Pan Andrei. Kokosinski raised the eared bowl and intoned:-- "Drink with us, dear host of ours, Dear host of ours! With us thou mightst drink to the grave, Drink to the grave!" Others repeated the chorus; then Kokosinski gave Kmita the eared bowl, and Zend gave Kokosinski a goblet. Kmita raised high the eared bowl and shouted, "Health to my maiden!" "Vivat! vivat!" cried all voices, till the window-panes began to rattle in their leaden fittings. "Vivat! the mourning will pass, the wedding will come!" They began to pour forth questions: "But how does she look? Hei! Yendrus,[9] is she very pretty, or such as you pictured her? Is there another like her in Orsha?" "In Orsha?" cried Kmita. "In comparison with her you might stop chimneys with our Orsha girls! A hundred thunders! there's not another such in the world." "That's the kind we wanted for you," answered Ranitski. "Well, when is the wedding to be?" "The minute the mourning is over." "Oh, fie on the mourning! Children are not born black, but white." "When the wedding comes, there will be no mourning. Hurry, Yendrus!" "Hurry, Yendrus!" all began to exclaim at once. "The little bannerets of Orsha are crying in heaven for the earth," said Kokosinski. "Don't make the poor little things wait!" "Mighty lords," added Rekuts-Leliva, with a thin voice, "at the wedding we'll drink ourselves drunk as fools." "My dear lambs," said Kmita, "pardon me, or, speaking more correctly, go to a hundred devils, let me look around in my own house." "Nonsense!" answered Uhlik. "To-morrow the inspection, but now all to the table; there is a pair of demijohns there yet with big bellies."