CHAPTER XIV.It is easy to understand how the prince received the statement which Skshetuski made of the refusal of Osinski and Koritski. Everything had so combined that it needed such a great soul as that iron prince possessed, not to bend, not to waver, or let his hands drop. In vain was he to spend a colossal fortune on the maintenance of armies; in vain was he to struggle like a lion in a net; in vain was he to tear off one head of the rebellion after another, showing wonders of bravery all for nothing. A time was coming in which he must feel his own impotence, withdraw somewhere to a distance, to a quiet place, and remain a silent spectator of what was being done in the Ukraine. And what was it that rendered him powerless? Not the swords of the Cossacks, but the ill-will of his own peo
