Pan Michael by Henryk Sienkiewicz — Read

As much as Pan Bogush hastened when going from Hreptyoff to the hetman, so much did he loiter on the way back. He halted a week or two in each more considerable place; he spent Christmas in Lvoff, and the New Year came on him there. He carried, it is true, the hetman's instructions for the son of Tugai Bey; but they contained merely injunctions to finish the affair of the captains promptly, and a dry and even threatening command to leave his great plans. Pan Bogush had no reason to push on, for Azya could do nothing among the Tartars without a document from the hetman. He loitered, therefore, visiting churches along the road, and doing penance because he had joined Azya's plans.

Meanwhile guests had swarmed into Hreptyoff immediately after the New Year. From Kamenyets came Naviragh, a delegate from the patriarch of Echmiadzin, with him the two Anardrats, skilful theologians from Kaffa, and a numerous retinue. The soldiers wondered greatly at the strange garments of these men, at the violet and red Crimean caps, long shawls, velvet and silk, at their dark faces, and the great gravity with which they strode, like bustards or cranes, through the Hreptyoff stanitsa. Pan Zaharyash Pyotrovich, famed for his continual journeys to the Crimea, nay, to Tsargrad itself, and still more for the eagerness with which he sought out and ransomed captives in the markets of the East, accompanied, as interpreter, Naviragh and the Anardrats. Pan Volodyovski counted out to him at once the sum needful to ransom Pan Boski; and since the wife had not money sufficient, he gave from his own; Basia added her earrings with pearls, so as to aid more efficiently the suffering lady and her charming daughter. Pan Seferovich, pretor of Kamenyets, came also -- a rich Armenian whose brother was groaning in Tartar bonds -- and two women, still young and of beauty far from inconsiderable, though somewhat dark, Pani Neresevich and Pani Kyeremovich. Both were concerned for their captive husbands.