A moment later spurs rattled, and Zbrojek entered, or rather rushed into the room. His face was pale, excited, and before the officers could ask the cause of his excitement the colonel cried,— “Kuklinovski is no longer living!” “How? What do you say? What has happened?” exclaimed Miller. “Let me catch breath,” said Zbrojek, “for what I have seen passes imagination.” “Talk more quickly. Has he been murdered?” cried all. “By Kmita,” answered Zbrojek. The officers all sprang from their seats, and began to look at Zbrojek as at a madman; and he, while blowing in quick succession bunches of steam from his nostrils, said,— “If I had not seen I should not have believed, for that is not a human power. Kuklinovski is not living, three soldiers are killed, and of Kmita not a trace. I know that he was a terrible man. His reputation is known in the whole country. But for him, a prisoner and bound, not only to free himself, but to kill the soldiers and torture Kuklinovski to death,—that a man could not do, only a devil!” “Nothing like that has ever happened; that’s impossible of belief!” whispered Sadovski. “That Kmita has shown what he can do,” said the Prince of Hesse. “We did not believe the Poles yesterday when they told us what kind of bird he was; we thought they were telling big stories, as is usual with them.” “Enough to drive a man mad,” said the count. Miller seized his head with his hands, and said nothing. When at last he raised his eyes, flashes of wrath were crossing in them with flashes of suspicion. “Pan Zbrojek,” said he, “though he were Satan and not a man, he could not do this without some treason, without assistance. Kmita had his admirers here; Kuklinovski his enemies, and you belong to the number.” Zbrojek was in the full sense of the word an insolent soldier; therefore when he heard an accusation directed against himself, he grew still paler, sprang from his place, approached Miller, and halting in front of him looked him straight in the eyes. “Does your worthiness suspect me?” inquired he. A very oppressive moment followed. The officers present had not the slightest doubt were Miller to give an affirmative answer something would follow terrible and unparalled in the history of camps. All hands rested on their rapier hilts. Sadovski even drew his weapon altogether. But at that moment the officers saw before the window a yard filled with Polish horsemen. Probably they also had come with news of Kuklinovski, but in case of collision they would stand beyond doubt on Zbrojek’s side. Miller too saw them, and though the paleness of rage had come on his face, still he restrained himself, and feigning to see no challenge in Zbrojek’s action, he answered in a voice which he strove to make natural,— “Tell in detail how it happened.” Zbrojek stood for a time yet with nostrils distended, but he too remembered himself; and then his thoughts turned in another direction, for his comrades, who had just ridden up, entered the room.