"Yes! God aided me, so that I, simple man, deceived a politician,--so that your highness, holding me the last of ruffians, hid nothing of your own ruffianism, confessed everything, told everything, as if it had been written on the hand. The hair stood on my head, but I listened and listened to the end. O traitors! arch hell-dwellers! O parricides! How is it, that a thunderbolt has not stricken you down before now? How is it that the earth has not swallowed you? So you are treating with Hmelnitski, with the Swedes, with the elector, with Rakotsy, and with the devil himself to the destruction of this Commonwealth? Now you want to cut a mantle out of it for yourself, to sell it to divide it, to tear your own mother like wolves? Such is your gratitude for all the benefits heaped on you,--for the offices, the honors, the dignities, the wealth, the authority, the estates which foreign kings envy you? And you were ready without regard to those tears, torments, oppression. Where is your conscience, where your faith, where your honesty? What monster brought you into the world?" "Cavalier," interrupted Boguslav, coldly, "you have me in your hand, you can kill me; but I beg one thing, do not bore me." Both were silent. However, it appeared plainly, from the words of Kmita, that the soldier had been able to draw out the naked truth from the diplomat, and that the prince was guilty of great incautiousness, of a great error in betraying his most secret plans and those of the hetman. This pricked his vanity; therefore, not caring to hide his ill-humor, he said,-- "Do not ascribe it to your own wit merely, Pan Kmita, that you got the truth from me. I spoke openly, for I thought the prince voevoda knew people better, and had sent a man worthy of confidence." "The prince voevoda sent a man worthy of confidence," answered Kmita, "but you have lost him. Henceforth only scoundrels will serve you." "If the way in which you seized me was not scoundrelly, then may the sword grow to my hand in the first battle." "It was a stratagem! I learned it in a hard school. You wish, your highness, to know Kmita. Here he is! I shall not go with empty hands to our gracious lord." "And you think that a hair of my head will fall from the hand of Yan Kazimir?" "That is a question for the judges, not for me." Suddenly Kmita reined in his horse: "But the letter of the prince voevoda,--have you that letter on your person?" "If I had, I would not give it. The letter remained in Pilvishki." "Search him!" cried Kmita. The soldiers seized the prince again by the arms. Soroka began to search his pockets. After a while he found the letter.