as hidden himself from the world as a scoundrel and a
murderer? God sees how I longed to tell him, but of that consolation I
will make an offering to God, to expiate my former sins."

"Then," said the Judge, "it is now time for you to think of yourself. Pray
reflect that a man of your age, in your weak condition, would be unable to
emigrate along with the others. You have said that you know a little house
where you must hide; tell me where it is. We must hasten, the waggon is
waiting, ready harnessed; would it not be better to go to the woods, to
the forester's hut?"

"Early to-morrow morning will be time enough," said Robak, nodding his
head. "Now, my brother, send for the priest to come here as quickly as may
be with the viaticum; send off every one but the Warden, and shut the
door."

The Judge carried out Robak's instructions and sat down on the bed beside
him; but Gerwazy remained standing, resting his elbow on the pommel of his
sword, and leaning his bent brow on his hands.

Robak, before beginning to speak, riveted his gaze on the face of the
Warden and remained mysteriously silent. But as a surgeon first lays a
gentle hand on the body of a sick man before he makes a cut with the
knife, so Robak softened the expression of his sharp eyes, which he
allowed to hover for a long time over the eyes of Gerwazy; finally, as if
he wished to strike a blind blow, he covered his eyes with his hand and
said with a powerful voice:--

"I am Jacek Soplica."

At these words the Warden turned pale, bowed down, and, with half his body
bent forward, remained fixed in this position, hung upon one foot, like a
stone flying from on high but checked in its course. He raised his eyelids
and opened wide his mouth with its threatening white teeth; his mustaches
bristled; his sword dropped from his hands, but he caught it near the
floor with his knees and held the pommel with his right hand, gripping it
convulsively: the long black blade of the sword stretched out behind him
and shook back and forth. And the Warden was like a wounded lynx, about to
spring from a tree into the very face of a hunter: it puffs itself into a
ball, growls, flashes fire from its bloody eyeballs, twitches its whiskers
and lashes its tail.

"Pan Rembajlo," said the Monk, "I am no longer alarmed by the wrath of
men, for already I am under the hand of God. I adjure thee in the name of
Him who saved the world, and on the cross blessed His murderers and
accepte