It was not long since with eyes shut he followed Pan Kmita to Hovanski's quarters surrounded by eighty thousand men; now at the thought of that long-haired prince with lady's eyes and a painted face, superstitious terror seized him, and he knew not what to do. The thought alarmed him, that to-morrow or the next day he would have to travel on highways where the terrible prince himself or his pursuers might meet him. This was the reason why he had gone from the road to the dense forest, and at present wished to stay in that cabin until pursuers were deluded and wearied. But since even that hiding-place did not seem to him safe for other reasons, he wished to discover what course to take; therefore he ordered the soldiers to stand guard at the door and the windows, and said to the pitch-maker,-- "Here, man, take a lantern and come with me." "I can light the great mighty lord only with a pitch-torch, for we have no lantern." "Then light the torch; if thou burn the shed and the horses, it is all one to me." After such words a lantern was found right away. Soroka commanded the fellow to go ahead, and followed himself with a pistol in his hand. "Who live in this cabin?" asked he on the road. "Men live here." "What are their names?" "That is not free for me to say." "It seems to me, fellow, that thou'lt get a bullet in thy head." "My master," answered the pitch-maker, "if I had told in a lie any kind of name, you would have to be satisfied." "True! But are there many of those men?" "There is an old one, two sons, and two servants." "Are they nobles?" "Surely nobles." "Do they live here?" "Sometimes here, and sometimes God knows where." "But the horses, whence are they?" "God knows whence they bring them." "Tell the truth; do thy masters not rob on the highway?" "Do I know? It seems to me they take horses, but whose,--that's not on my head." "What do they do with the horses?" "Sometimes they take ten or twelve of them, as many as there are, and drive them away, but whither I know not." Thus conversing, they reached the shed, from which was heard the snorting of horses. "Hold the light," said Soroka. The fellow raised the lantern, and threw light on the horses standing in a row at the wall. Soroka examined them one after another with the eye of a specialist, shook his head, smacked his lips, and said,-- "The late Pan Zend would have rejoiced. There are Polish and Muscovite horses here,--there is a Wallachian, a German,--a mare. Fine horses! What dost thou give them to eat?" "Not to lie, my master, I sowed two fields with oats in springtime." "Then thy masters have been handling horses since spring?" "No, but they sent a servant to me with a command." "Then art thou theirs?" "I was till they went to the war." "What war?" "Do I know? They went far away last year, and came back in the summer." "Whose art thou now?" "These are the king's forests." "Who put thee here to make pitch?"