hat
after the killing of the beast he had appeared for a moment, had leapt
towards the Count and Thaddeus, and, seeing that both were safe and sound,
had raised his eyes to Heaven, quietly repeated a prayer, and had run
quickly into the field, as though some one were chasing him.

Meanwhile at the Seneschal's bidding they had thrown into a heap bundles
of heather, dry brushwood, and logs; the fire burst forth, and a grey pine
tree of smoke grew up and spread out aloft like a canopy. Over the flame
they joined pikes into a tripod; on the spears they hung big-bellied
kettles; from the waggons they brought vegetables, meal, roast meats, and
bread.

The Judge opened a locked liquor case, in which there could be seen rows
of white necks of bottles; from among them he took the largest crystal
decanter--this the Judge had received as a gift from the Monk, Robak. It
was Dantzic brandy, a drink dear to a Pole. "Long live Dantzic!" cried the
Judge, raising the flask on high; "the city once was ours, and it will be
ours again!" And he filled each glass with the silvery liquor, until at
last it began to drip golden and glitter in the sun.87

In the kettles they were cooking _bigos_.88 In words it is hard to express
the wonderful taste and colour of bigos and its marvellous odour; in a
description of it one hears only the clinking words and the regular rimes,
but no city stomach can understand their content. In order to appreciate
Lithuanian songs and dishes, one must have health, must live in the
country, and must be returning from a hunting party.

However, even without these sauces, bigos is no ordinary dish, for it is
artistically composed of good vegetables. The foundation of it is sliced,
sour cabbage, which, as the saying is, goes into the mouth of itself;
this, enclosed in a kettle, covers with its moist bosom the best parts of
selected meat, and is parboiled, until the fire extracts from it all the
living juices, and until the fluid boils over the edge of the pot, and the
very air around is fragrant with the aroma.

The bigos was soon ready. The huntsmen with a thrice-repeated vivat, armed
with spoons, ran up and assailed the kettle; the copper rang, the vapour
burst forth, the bigos evaporated like camphor, it vanished and flew away;
only in the jaws of the caldrons the steam still seethed, as in the
craters of extinct volcanoes.

When they had eaten and drunk their fill, they put the beast on a waggon,
and themselve