"For my mind, it is a strong reason," said Sadovski; "and I think that if you had found the silver you would not feel bound to divide it, not only with the Poles, but even with me, a Cheh."
"First of all, my dear sir, I do not share your good will for the enemies of our king," answered the count, with a frown.
"But we, thanks to you, must share with you shame and disgrace, not being able to succeed against a fortress to which you have brought us."
"Then have you lost all hope?"
"But have you any yourself to give away?"
"Just as if you knew; and I think that these gentlemen share more willingly with me in my hope, than with you in your fear."
"Do you make me a coward, Count Veyhard?"
"I do not ascribe to you more courage than you show."
"And I ascribe to you less."
"But I," said Miller, who for some time had looked on the count with dislike as the instigator of the ill-starred undertaking, "shall have the silver sent to the cloister. Perhaps kindness and graciousness will do more with these surly monks than balls and cannon. Let them understand that we wish to possess the fortress, not their treasures."
The officers looked on Miller with wonder, so little accustomed were they to magnanimity from him. At last Sadovski said,
"Nothing better could be done, for it will close at once the mouths of the Polish colonels who lay claim to the silver. In the fortress it will surely make a good impression."
"The death of that Kmita will make the best impression," answered Count Veyhard. "I hope that Kuklinovski has already torn him out of his skin."
"I think that he is no longer alive," said Miller. "But that name reminds me of our loss, which nothing can make good. That was the greatest gun in the whole artillery of his grace. I do not hide from you, gentlemen, that all my hopes were placed on it. The breach was already made, terror was spreading in the fortress. A couple of days longer and we should have moved to a storm. Now all our labor is useless, all our exertions vain. They will repair the wall in one day. And the guns which we have now are no better than those of the fortress, and can be easily dismounted. No larger ones can be had anywhere, for even Marshal Wittemberg hasn't them. The more I ponder over it, the more the disaster seems dreadful. And to think that one man did this, one dog! one Satan! I shall go mad! To all the horned devils!"
Here Miller struck the table with his fist, for unrestrained anger had seized him, the more desperately because he was powerless. After a while he cried,
"But what will the king say when he hears of this loss?" After a while he added: "And what shall we do? We cannot gnaw away that cliff with our teeth. Would that the plague might strike those who persuaded me to come to this fortress!"
Having said this, he took a crystal goblet, and in his excitement hurled it to the floor so that the crystal was broken into small bits.
This unbecoming frenzy, more befitting a peasant than a warrior holding such a high office, turned all hearts from him, and soured good-humor completely.
"Give counsel, gentlemen!" cried Miller.
"It is possible to counsel, but only in calmness," answered the Prince of Hesse.
Miller began to puff and blow out his anger through his nostrils. After a time he grew calm, and passing his eyes over those present as if encouraging them with a glance, he said,
"I ask your pardon, gentlemen, but my anger is not strange. I will not mention those places which, when I had taken command after Torstenson, I captured, for I do not wish, in view of the present disaster, to boast of past fortune. All that is done at this fortress simply passes reason. But still it is necessary to take counsel. For that purpose I have summoned you. Deliberate, then, and what the majority of us determine at this council will be done."
"Let your worthiness give us the subject for deliberation," said the Prince of Hesse. "Have we to deliberate only concerning the capture of the fortress, or also concerning this, whether it is better to withdraw?"
Miller did not wish to put the question so clearly, or at least he did not wish the "either or," to come first from his mouth; therefore he said,
"Let each speak clearly what he thinks. It should be a question for us of the profit and praise of the king."
But none of the officers wished more than Miller to appear first with the proposition to retreat, therefore there was silence again.
"Pan Sadovski," said Miller after a while, in a voice which he tried to make agreeable and kind, "you say what you think more sincerely than others, for your reputation insures you against all suspicion."
"I think, General," answered the colonel, "that Kmita was one of the greatest soldiers of this age, and that our position is desperate."
"But you were in favor of withdrawing from the fortress?"
"With permission of your worthiness, I was only in favor of not beginning the siege. That is a thing quite different."
"Then what do you advise now?"
"Now I give the floor to Count Veyhard."
Miller swore like a pagan.
"Count Veyhard will answer for this unfortunate affair," said he.
"My counsels have not all been carried out," answered the count, insolently. "I can boldly cast responsibility from myself. There were men who with a wonderful, in truth an inexplicable, good-will for the priests, dissuaded his worthiness from all severe measures. My advice was to hang those envoy priests, and I am convinced that if this had been done terror would have opened to us before this time the gates of that hen-house."
Here the count looked at Sadovski; but before the latter had answered, the Prince of Hesse interfered: "Count, do not call that fortress a hen-house, for the more you decrease its importance the more you increase our shame."
"Nevertheless I advised to hang the envoys. Terror and always terror, that is what I repeated from morning till night; but Pan Sadovski threatened resignation, and the priests went unharmed."
"Go, Count, to-day to the fortress," answered Sadovski, "blow up with powder their greatest gun as Kmita did ours, and I guarantee that, that will spread more terror than a murderous execution of envoys."
The count turned directly to Miller: "Your worthiness I thought we had come here for counsel and not for amusement."
"Have you an answer to baseless reproaches?" asked Miller.
"I have, in spite of the joyousness of these gentlemen, who might save their humor for better times."
"Oh, son of Laertes, famous for stratagems!" exclaimed the Prince of Hesse.
"Gentlemen," answered the count, "it is universally known that not Minerva but Mars is your guardian deity; but since Mars has not favored you, and you have renounced your right of speech, let me speak."
"The mountain is beginning to groan, and soon we shall see the small tail of a mouse," said Sadovski.
"I ask for silence!" said Miller, severely. "Speak, Count, but keep in mind that up to this moment your counsels have given bitter fruit."
"Which, though it is winter, we must eat like mouldy biscuits," put in the Prince of Hesse.
"This explains why your princely highness drinks so much wine," said Count Veyhard; "and though it does not take the place of native wit, it helps you to a happy digestion of even disgrace. But no matter! I know well that there is a party in the fortress which is long desirous of surrender, and that only our weakness on one side and the superhuman stubbornness of the prior on the other keep it in check. New terror will give this party new power; for this purpose we should show that we make no account of the loss of the gun, and storm the more vigorously."
"Is that all?"
"Even if it were all, I think that such counsel is more in accordance with the honor of Swedish soldiers than barren jests at cups, or than sleeping after drinking-bouts. But that is not all. We should spread the report among our soldiers, and especially among the Poles, that the men at work now making a mine have discovered the old underground passage leading to the cloister and the church."