“If you, serene great mighty hetman, guarantee this with your office, it must have been so.” “It was so!” said the hetman. And they lacked little of drinking Kmita’s health. But in truth there were very violent voices against this, especially among the former officers of Radzivill. Hearing these, the hetman said,— “And do you know, gentlemen, how this Kmita comes to my mind? Babinich, the king’s courier, resembles him much. At the first moment I was mistaken myself.” Here Sapyeha began to look around with more severity and to speak with greater seriousness,— “Though Kmita were to come here himself, since he has changed, since he has defended a holy place with immense bravery, I should defend him with my office of hetman. I ask you therefore, gentlemen, to raise no disturbance here by reason of this newly arrived. I ask you to remember that he has come here by appointment of the king and the Khan. But especially do I recommend this to you who are captains in the general militia, for with you it is harder to preserve discipline.” Whenever Sapyeha spoke thus, Zagloba alone dared to murmur, all others would sit in obedience, and so they sat now; but when the hetman’s face grew gladsome again, all rejoiced. The goblets moving swiftly filled the measure of rejoicing, and the whole town was thundering till morning, so that the walls of houses were shaking on their foundation, and the smoke of salutes veiled them, as in time of battle. Next morning Sapyeha sent Anusia to Grodno with Pan Kotchyts. In Grodno, from which Hovanski had long since withdrawn, the voevoda’s family was living. Poor Anusia, whose head the handsome Babinich had turned somewhat, took farewell of him very tenderly; but he was on his guard, and only at the very parting did he say to her,— “Were it not for one devil which sits in my heart like a thorn, I should surely have fallen in love with you to kill.” Anusia thought to herself that there is no splinter which may not be picked out with patience and a needle; but she feared somewhat this Babinich, therefore she said nothing, sighed quietly, and departed. CHAPTER XXIII.