“From a bandit, a ruffian, and a robber,--not from a hetman!”
The Zaporojians grew pale, or blue rather, and dropping their heads on their breasts stood in silence at the door. Then the prince ordered Pan Mashkevich to take the letter and read it.
The letter was humble, though it was after Korsún. The fox had gained the upper hand of the lion in Hmelnitski, the serpent of the eagle, for he remembered that he was writing to Vishnyevetski. He flattered in order to quiet, and then the more easily to sting. He wrote that what had happened was through the fault of Chaplinski, and that the fickleness of fortune had met the hetmans; hence it was not his fault, but their evil fate and the oppressions which the Cossacks had endured in the Ukraine. Still he asked the prince not to be offended, to
