“Permit me, your worthiness, to take him that answer,” said Zagloba. And without waiting, he hastened away with the officer, went to Yan Sapyeha, and, apparently, not only repeated the starosta’s words, but added something very bad from himself; for Sapyeha turned from the town as if a thunderbolt had burst in front of his horse, and rode away with his cap thrust over his ears. From the walls and from the squadrons of the cavalry which were standing before the gate they began to hoot at the men riding off,— “To the kennel with traitors, the betrayers! Jew servants! Huz, huz!” Sapyeha stood before the king, pale, with compressed lips. The king too was confused, for Zamost had deceived his hopes. In spite of what had been said, he expected to find a town of such power of resistance as Cracow, Poznan, and other places, so many of which he had captured; meanwhile he found a fortress powerful, calling to mind those of Denmark and the Netherlands, which he could not even think of taking without guns of heavy calibre. “What is the result?” asked the king, when he saw Sapyeha. “Nothing! Zamoyski will not speak with Poles who serve your Royal Grace. He sent out his jester, who reviled me and your Royal Grace so shamefully that it is not proper to repeat what he said.” “It is all one to me with whom he wants to speak, if he will only speak. In default of other arguments, I have iron arguments; but meanwhile I will send Forgell.” Half an hour later Forgell, with a purely Swedish suite, announced himself at the gate. The drawbridge was let down slowly over the moat, and the general entered the fortress amid silence and seriousness. Neither the eyes of the envoy nor those of any man in his suite were bound; evidently Zamoyski wished him to see everything, and be able to report to the king touching everything. The master of Zamost received Forgell with as much splendor as an independent prince would have done, and arranged all, in truth, admirably, for Swedish lords had not one twelfth as much wealth as the Poles had; and Zamoyski among Poles was well-nigh the most powerful. The clever Swede began at once to treat him as if the king had sent the embassy to a monarch equal to himself; to begin with, he called him “Princeps,” and continued to address him thus, though Pan Sobiepan interrupted him promptly in the beginning,— “Not princeps, _eques polonus_ (a Polish nobleman), but for that very reason the equal of princes.” “Your princely grace,” said Forgell, not permitting himself to be diverted, “the Most Serene King of Sweden and Lord,” here he enumerated his titles, “has not come here as an enemy in any sense; but, speaking simply, has come on a visit, and through me announces himself, having, as I believe, a well-founded hope that your princely grace will desire to open your gates to him and his army.”