mind it, for if I wished to take in all I have done, I could pave the
road from this place to Sandomir with such Swenos. Could I not? Tell
me, any of you who know me.”

“Uncle could do it,” said Roh Kovalski.

Charnyetski did not hear the continuation of this dialogue, for he had
fallen to thinking deeply over Zagloba’s words. He too knew of
Lyubomirski’s ambition, and doubted not that the marshal would either
impose his own will on him, or would act on his own account, even
though that should bring harm to the Commonwealth. Therefore his stern
face became gloomy, and he began to twist his beard.

“Oho!” whispered Zagloba to Pan Yan, “Charnyetski is chewing something
bitter, for his face is like the face of an eagle; he will snap up
somebody soon.”

Then Charnyetski said: “Some one of you, gentlemen, should go with a
letter from me to Lyubomirski.”

“I am known to him, and I will go,” said Pan Yan.

“That is well,” answered Charnyetski; “the more noted the messenger,
the better.”

Zagloba turned to Volodyovski and whispered: “He is speaking now
through the nose; that is a sign of great change.”

In fact, Charnyetski had a silver palate, for a musket-ball had carried
away his own years before at Busha. Therefore whenever he was roused,
angry, and unquiet, he always began to speak with a sharp and clinking
voice. Suddenly he turned to Zagloba: “And perhaps you would go with
Pan Skshetuski?”

“Willingly,” answered Zagloba. “If I cannot do anything, no man can.
Besides, to a man of such great birth it will be more proper to send
two.”

Charnyetski compressed his lips, twisted his beard, and repeated as if
to himself: “Great birth, great birth—”

“No one can deprive Lyubomirski of that,” remarked Zagloba.

Charnyetski frowned.

“The Commonwealth alone is great, and in comparison with it no family
is great, all of them are small; and I would the earth swallowed those
who make mention of their greatness.”

All were silent, for he had spoken with much vehemence; and only after
some time did Zagloba say,—

“In comparison with the whole Commonwealth, certainly.”

“I did not grow up out of salt, nor out of the soil, but out of that
which pains me,” said Charnyetski; “and the Cossacks who shot this lip
through pained me, and now the Swedes pain me; and either I shall cut
away this sore with the sabre, or die of it myself, so help me God!”

“And we will help you with our blood!” said Polyanovski.

Charnyetski ruminated some time yet over the bitterness which rose in
his heart, over the thought that the marshal’s ambition might hinder
him in saving the country; at last he grew calm and said,—

“Now it is necessary to write a letter. I ask you, gentlemen, to come
with me.”

Pan Yan and Zagloba followed him, and half an hour later they were on
horseback and riding back toward Radymno; for there was news that the
marshal had halted there with his army.

“Yan,” said Zagloba, feeling of the bag in which he carried
Charnyetski’s letter, “do me a favor; let me be the only one to talk to
the marshal.”

“But, father, have you really known him, and taught him fencing?”

“Hei! that came out of itself, so that the breath should not grow hot
in my mouth, and my tongue become soft, which might easily happen from
too long silence. I neither knew him nor taught him. Just as if I had
nothing better to do than be a bear-keeper, and teach the marshal how
to walk on hind legs! But that is all one; I have learned him through
and through from what people tell of him, and I shall be able to bend
him as a cook bends pastry. Only one thing I beg of you: do not say
that we have a letter from Charnyetski, and make no mention of it till
I give the letter myself.”

“How is that? Should I not do the work for which I was sent? In my life
such a thing has not happened, and it will not happen! Even if
Charnyetski should forgive me, I would not do that for ready treasure.”

“Then I will draw my sabre and hamstring your horse so that you cannot
follow me. Have you ever seen anything miscarry that I invented with my
own head? Tell me, have you ever come into evil plight yourself with
Zagloba’s stratagems? Did Pan Michael come out badly, or your Helena,
or any of you, when I freed you all from Radzivill’s hands? I tell you
that more harm than good may come of that letter; for Charnyetski wrote
it in such agitation that he broke three pens. Finally, you can speak
of it when my plans fail. I promise to give it then, but not before.”

“If I can only deliver the letter, it is all one when.”

“I ask for no more. Now on, for there is a terrible road before us.”

They urged the horses, and went at a gallop. But they did not need to
ride long, for the marshal’s vanguard had not only passed Radymno, but
Yaroslav; and Lyubomirski himself was at Yaroslav, and occupied the
former quarters of the King of Sweden.

They found him at dinner, with the most important officers. But when
the envoys were announced, Lyubomirski gave orders to receive them at
once; for he knew the names, since they were mentioned at that time in
the whole Commonwealth.

All eyes were turned on the envoys as they entered; the officers looked
with especial admiration and curiosity at Pan Yan. When the marshal had
greeted them courteously, he asked at once,—

“Have I that famous knight before me who brought the letters from
besieged Zbaraj to the king?”

“I crept through,” said Pan Yan.

“God grant me as many such officers as possible! I envy Pan Charnyetski
nothing so much; as to the rest, I know that even my small services
will not perish from the memory of men.”

“And I am Zagloba,” said the old knight, pushing himself forward.

Here he passed his eye around the assembly; and the marshal, as he
wished to attract every one to himself, exclaimed,—

“Who does not know of the man who slew Burlai, the leader of the
barbarians; of the man who raised Radzivill’s army in rebellion—”

“And I led Sapyeha’s army, who, if the truth is told, chose me, not him
for leader,” added Zagloba.

“And why did you wish, being able to have such a high office, to leave
it and serve under Pan Charnyetski?”

Here Zagloba’s eye gleamed at Skshetuski, and he said: “Serene great
mighty marshal, from your worthiness I as well as the whole country
take example how to resign ambition and self-interest for the good of
the Commonwealth.”

Lyubomirski blushed from satisfaction, and Zagloba, putting his hands
on his hips, continued,—

“Pan Charnyetski has sent us to bow to your worthiness in his name and
that of the whole army, and at the same time to inform you of the
considerable victory which God has permitted us to gain over
Kanneberg.”

“I have heard of it already,” said the marshal, dryly enough, in whom
envy had now begun to move, “but gladly do I hear it again from an
eyewitness.”

Zagloba began at once to relate, but with certain changes, for the
forces of Kanneberg grew in his mouth to two thousand men. He did not
forget either to mention Sweno or himself, and how before the eyes of
the king the remnant of the cavalry were cut to pieces near the river;
how the wagons and three hundred men of the guards fell into the hands
of the fortunate conquerors; in a word, the victory increased in his
narrative to the dimensions of an unspeakable misfortune for the
Swedes.

All listened with attention, and so did the marshal; but he grew
gloomier and gloomier, his face was chilled as if by ice, and at last
he said,—

“I do not deny that Charnyetski is a celebrated warrior, but still he
cannot devour all the Swedes himself; something will remain for others
to gulp.”

“Serene great mighty lord,” answered Zagloba, “it is not Pan
Charnyetski who gained the victory.”

“But who?”

“But Lyubomirski!”

A moment of universal astonishment followed. The marshal opened his
mouth, began to wink, and looked at Zagloba with such an astonished
gaze, as if he wished to ask: “Is there not a stave lacking in your
barrel?”

Zagloba did not let himself be beaten from the track, but pouting his
lips with great importance (he borrowed this gesture from Zamoyski),
said,—

“I heard Charnyetski say before the whole army: ‘It is not our sabres
that slay them; ’tis the name of Lyubomirski that cuts them down. Since
they have heard that he is right here marching on, their courage has so
gone out of them that they see in every one of our soldiers the army of
the marshal, and they put their heads under the knife like sheep.’”

If all the rays of the sun had fallen at once on the face of the
marshal, that face could not have been more radiant.

“How is that?” asked he; “did Charnyetski himself say that?”

“He did, and many other things; but I do not know that ’tis proper for
me to repeat them, for he told them only to intimates.”

“Tell! Every word of Pan Charnyetski deserves to be repeated a hundred
times. He is an uncommon man, and I said so long ago.”

Zagloba looked at the marshal, half closing his one eye, and muttered:
“You have swallowed the hook; I’ll land you this minute.”

“What do you say?” asked the marshal.

“I say that the army cheered your worthiness in such fashion that they
could not have cheered the king better; and in Pjevorsk, where we
fought all night with the Swedes, wherever a squadron sprang out the
men cried: ‘Lyubomirski! Lyubomirski!’ and that had a better effect
than ‘Allah!’ and ‘Slay, kill!’ There is a witness here too,—Pan
Skshetuski, no common soldier, and a man who has never told a lie in
his life.”

The marshal looked involuntarily at Pan Yan, who blushed to his ears,
and muttered something through his nose. Meanwhile the officers of the
marshal began to praise the envoys aloud,—

“See, Pan Charnyetski has acted courteously, sending such polished
cavaliers; both are famous knights, and honey simply flows from the
mouth of one of them.”

“I have always understood that Pan Charnyetski was a well-wisher of
mine, but now there is nothing that I would not do for him,” cried the
marshal, whose eyes were veiled with a mist from delight.

At this Zagloba broke into enthusiasm: “Serene great mighty lord, who
would not render homage to you, who would not honor you, the model of
all civic virtues, who recall Aristides in justice, the Scipios in
bravery! I have read many books in my time, have seen much, have
meditated much, and my soul has been rent from pain; for what have I
seen in this Commonwealth? The Opalinskis, the Radzeyovskis, the
Radzivills, who by their personal pride, setting their own ambition
above all things, were ready at every moment to desert the country for
their own private gain. I thought further, this Commonwealth is lost
through the viciousness of its own sons. But who has comforted me, who
has consoled me in my suffering? Pan Charnyetski, for he said: ‘The
Commonwealth has not perished, since Lyubomirski has risen up in it.
These others,’ said he, ‘think of themselves alone; he is only looking,
only seeking how to make an offering of his own interests on the common
altar. These are pushing themselves forward; he is pushing himself
back, for he wants to illustrate by his example. Now,’ said he, ‘he is
marching with a powerful conquering army, and I have heard,’ said he,
‘that he wishes to give me the command over it, in order to teach
others how they should sacrifice their ambition, though even just, for
the country. Go, then,’ said he, ‘to Pan Lyubomirski, declare to him
that I do not want the sacrifice, I do not desire it, since he is a
better leader than I am; since, moreover, not only as leader, but—God
grant our Kazimir a long life!—as king are we ready to choose him,
and—we will choose him!’”

Here Zagloba was somewhat frightened lest he had passed the measure,
and really after the exclamation, “We will choose him!” followed
silence; but before the magnate heaven opened; he grew somewhat pale at
first, then red, then pale again, and laboring heavily with his breast,
said, after the silence of a moment,—

“The Commonwealth is and will ever remain in control of its own will,
for on that ancient foundation do our liberties rest. But I am only a
servant of its servants, and God is my witness that I do not raise my
eyes to those heights at which a citizen should not gaze. As to command
over the army, Pan Charnyetski must accept it. I demand it especially
for this, to give an example to those who, having continually the
greatness of their family in mind, are unwilling to recognize any
authority whenever it is necessary to forget the greatness of their
family for the good of the country. Therefore, though perhaps I am not
such a bad leader, still I, Lyubomirski, enter willingly under the
command of Charnyetski, praying to God only to send us victory over the
enemy!”

“Roman! Father of the country!” exclaimed Zagloba, seizing the
marshal’s hand and pressing it to his lips.

But at the same moment the old rogue turned his eye on Pan Yan, and
began to wink time after time.

Thundering shouts were heard from the officers. The throng in the
quarters increased with each moment.

“Wine!” cried the marshal.

And when they brought in goblets he raised at once a toast to the king,
then to Charnyetski, whom he called his leader, and finally to the
envoys. Zagloba did not remain behind with the toasts, and he so caught
the hearts of all that the marshal himself conducted them to the
threshold, and the knights to the gates of Yaroslav.

At last Pan Yan and Zagloba were alone; then Zagloba stopped the road
in front of Pan Yan, reined in his horse, and putting his hands on his
hips, said,—

“Well, Yan, what do you think?”

“God knows,” answered Pan Yan, “that if I had not seen it with my own
eyes and heard it with my own ears, I would not believe, even if an
angel had told me.”

“Ha! do you know? I will swear to you that Charnyetski himself at the
most asked and begged Lyubomirski to go in company with him. And do you
know what he would have done? Lyubomirski would have gone alone; for if
Charnyetski has adjured in the letter by the love of country, or if he
mentioned private interests, and I am sure that he has, the marshal
would have been offended at once, and would have said: ‘Does he want to
be my preceptor, and teach me how to serve the country?’ I know those
men! Happily old Zagloba took the matter in hand, and hardly had he
opened his mouth when Lyubomirski not only wanted to go with
Charnyetski, but to go under his command. Charnyetski is killing
himself with anxiety, but I will comfort him. Well, Yan, does Zagloba
know how to manage the magnates?”

“I tell you that I am not able to let the breath go from my lips from
astonishment.”

“I know them! Show one of them a crown and a corner of the ermine robe,
and you may rub him against the grain like a hound pup, and besides, he
will bend up to you and present his back himself. No cat will so lick
his chops, even if you hold before him a dinner of pure cheese. The
eyes of the most honest of them will be bursting out from desire; and
if a scoundrel happens, such as the voevoda of Vilna, he is ready to
betray the country. Oh, the vanity of man! Lord Jesus! if Thou hadst
given me as many thousands of ducats as Thou hast created candidates
for this crown, I should be a candidate myself. For if any of them
imagines that I hold myself inferior to him, then may his stomach burst
from his own pride. Zagloba is as good as Lyubomirski; in fortune alone
is the difference. This is true, Yan. Do you think that I really kissed
him on the hand? I kissed my own thumb, and shoved his hand up to my
nose. Certain it is that since he is alive no one has so fooled him. I
have spread him like butter on toast for Charnyetski. God grant our
king as long a life as possible; but in case of election, I would
rather give a vote to myself than to Lyubomirski. Roh Kovalski would
give me another, and Pan Michael would strike down my opponents. As God
lives! I would make you grand hetman of the kingdom straightway, and
Pan Michael, after Sapyeha, grand hetman of Lithuania,—but Jendzian,
treasurer. He would punish the Jews with taxes! But enough; the main
thing is that I have caught Lyubomirski on a hook and put the line in
Charnyetski’s hand. For whomsoever the flour, it will be ground on the
Swedes; and whose is the merit? What do you think? Should the
chroniclers inscribe it to some one else? But I have no luck. It will
be well even if Charnyetski does not break out on the old man for not
having given the letter. Such is human gratitude. This is not my first,
not my first—others are sitting in starostaships, and are grown around
with fat, like badgers; but do you, old man, shake your poor stomach on
a horse as before.”

Here Zagloba waved his hand. “Human gratitude may go to the hangman!
And whether in this or that position you must die, still it is pleasant
to serve the country. The best reward is good company. As soon as a man
is on horseback, then, with such comrades as you and Michael, he is
ready to ride to the end of the world,—such is our Polish nature. If a
German, a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a dark Spaniard is on horseback,
he is ready at once to gallop into your eyes; but a Pole, having inborn
patience, will endure much, and will permit even a Swedish fellow to
pluck him; but when the limit is passed and the Pole whacks him in the
snout, such a Swede will cover himself three times with his legs. For
there is metal yet in the Poles, and while the metal lasts the
Commonwealth will last. Beat that into yourself, Yan.”

And so spoke Zagloba for a long time, for he was very glad; and
whenever he was very glad he was talkative beyond usual measure, and
full of wise sentences.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Charnyetski, in truth, did not even dare to think that the marshal of
the kingdom would put himself under his command. He wished merely joint
action, and he feared that even that would not be attained because of
the great ambition of Lyubomirski; for the proud magnate had mentioned
more than once to his officers that he wished to attack the Swedes
independently, for thus he could effect something; but if he and
Charnyetski won a victory together, the whole glory would flow to
Charnyetski.

Such was the case, in fact. Charnyetski understood the marshal’s
reasons, and was troubled. He was reading now, for the tenth time, the
copy of the letter which he had sent from Pjevorsk, wishing to see if
he had written anything to offend so irritable a man as Lyubomirski.

He regretted certain phrases; finally he began to regret, on the whole,
that he had sent the letter. Therefore he was sitting gloomy in his
quarters, and every little while he approached the window and looked
out on the road to see if the envoys were not returning. The officers
saw him through the window, and divined what was passing in his mind,
for evident trouble was on his forehead.

“But look,” said Polyanovski to Pan Michael, “there will be nothing
pleasant, for the castellan’s face has become spotted, and that is a
bad sign.”

Charnyetski’s face bore numerous traces of small-pox, and in moments of
great emotion or disquiet it was covered with white and dark spots. As
he had sharp features, a very high forehead and cloudy, Jupiter brows,
a bent nose, and a glance cutting straight through, when in addition
those spots appeared, he became terrible. The Cossacks in their time
called him the spotted dog; but in truth, he was more like a spotted
eagle, and when he led men to the attack and his burka spread out like
great wings, the likeness struck both his own men and the enemy.

He roused fear in these and those. During the Cossack wars leaders of
powerful bands lost their heads when forced to act against Charnyetski.
Hmelnitski himself feared him, but especially the counsels which he
gave the king. They brought upon the Cossacks the terrible defeat of
Berestechko. But his fame increased chiefly after Berestechko, when,
together with the Tartars, he passed over the steppes like a flame,
crushed the uprisen crowds, took towns and trenches by storm, rushing
with the speed of a whirlwind from one end of the Ukraine to the other.

With this same raging endurance was he plucking the Swedes now.
“Charnyetski does not knock out my men, he steals them away,” said Karl
Gustav. But Charnyetski was tired of stealing away; he thought that the
time had come to strike. But he lacked artillery and infantry
altogether, without which nothing decisive could be done, nothing
important effected; hence his eagerness for a junction with
Lyubomirski, who had a small number of cannon, it is true, but brought
with him infantry composed of mountaineers. These, though not over-much
trained as yet, had still been under fire more than once, and might,
for want of better, be used against the incomparable infantry legions
of Karl Gustav.

Charnyetski, therefore, was as if in a fever. Not being able to endure
in the house, he went outside, and seeing Volodyovski and Polyanovski,
he asked,—

“Are the envoys not in sight?”

“It is clear that they are glad to see them,” answered Volodyovski.

“They are glad to see them, but not glad to read my letter, or the
marshal would have sent his answer.”

“Pan Castellan,” said Polyanovski, whom Charnyetski trusted greatly,
“why be careworn? If the marshal comes, well; if not, we will attack as
of old. As it is, blood is flowing from the Swedish pot; and we know
that when a pot once begins to leak, everything will run out of it.”

“There is a leak in the Commonwealth too,” said Charnyetski. “If the
Swedes escape this time, they will be reinforced, succor will come to
them from Prussia, our chance will be lost.” Then he struck his side
with his hand in sign of impatience. Just then was heard the tread of
horses and the bass voice of Zagloba singing,—

“Kaska to the bakehouse went her way,
And Stah said to her, ‘Take me in, let me in,
                    My love.
For the snow is falling, and the wind is blowing;
Where shall I, poor fellow, put my head
                    Till morning?’”

“It is a good sign! They are returning joyously,” cried Polyanovski.

That moment the envoys, seeing Charnyetski, sprang from their saddles,
gave their horses to an attendant, and went quickly to the entrance.
Zagloba threw his cap suddenly into the air, and imitating the voice of
the marshal so excellently that whoever was not looking on might be
deceived, cried,—

“Vivat Pan Charnyetski, our leader!”

The castellan frowned, and asked quickly: “Is there a letter for me?”

“There is not,” answered Zagloba; “there is something better. The
marshal with his army passes voluntarily under command of your
worthiness.”

Charnyetski pierced him with a look, then turned to Pan Yan, as if
wishing to say: “Speak you, for this one has been drinking!”

Zagloba was in fact a little drunk; but Skshetuski confirmed his words,
hence astonishment was reflected on the face of the castellan.

“Come with me,” said he to the two. “I beg you also,” said he to
Polyanovski and Pan Michael.

All entered his room. They had not sat down yet when Charnyetski asked:
“What did he say to my letter?”

“He said nothing,” answered Zagloba, “and why he did not will appear at
the end of my story; but now _incipiam_ (I will begin).”

Here he told all as it had happened,—how he had brought the marshal to
such a favorable decision. Charnyetski looked at him with growing
astonishment, Polyanovski seized his own head, Pan Michael’s mustaches
were quivering.

“I have not known you hitherto, as God is dear to me!” cried
Charnyetski, at last. “I cannot believe my own ears.”

“They have long since called me Ulysses,” said Zagloba, modestly.

“Where is my letter?”

“Here it is.”

“I must forgive you for not delivering it. He is a finished rogue! A
vice-chancellor might learn from him how to make treaties. As God
lives, if I were king, I would send you to Tsargrad.”

“If he were there, a hundred thousand Turks would be here now!” cried
Pan Michael.

To which Zagloba said: “Not one, but two hundred thousand, as true as I
live.”

“And did the marshal hesitate at nothing?” asked Charnyetski.

“He? He swallowed all that I put to his lips, just as a fat gander
gulps pellets; his eyes were covered with mist. I thought that from
delight he would burst, as a Swedish bomb bursts. With flattery that
man might be taken to hell.”

“If it can only be ground out on the Swedes, if it can only be ground
out, and I have hope that it will be,” said Charnyetski, delighted.
“You are a man adroit as a fox; but do not make too much sport of the
marshal, for another would not have done what he has to-day. Much
depends on him. We shall march to Sandomir itself over the estates of
the Lyubomirskis, and the marshal can raise with one word the whole
region, command peasants to injure crossings, burn bridges, hide
provisions in the forests. You have rendered a service which I shall
not forget till death; but I must thank the marshal, for as I believe
he has not done this from mere vanity.”

Then he clapped his hands and cried: “A horse for me at once! Let us
forge the iron while it is hot!” Then he turned to the colonels: “Come,
all of you gentlemen, with me, so that the suite may be the most
imposing.”

“And must I go too?” asked Zagloba.

“You have built the bridge between me and the marshal, it is proper
that you be the first to pass over. Besides, I think that they will see
you gladly. Come, come, lord brother, or I shall say that you wished to
leave a half-finished work.”

“Hard to refuse. I must draw my belt tighter, however, lest I shake
into nothing. Not much strength is left me, unless I fortify it with
something.”

“But with what?”

“Much has been told me of the castellan’s mead which I have not tasted
as yet, and I should like to know if it is better than the marshal’s.”

“We will drink a stirrup cup now, but after our return we shall not
limit the cups in advance. You will find a couple of decanters of it in
your own quarters.”

Then the castellan commanded to bring goblets; they drank enough for
brightness and good humor, mounted and rode away.

The marshal received Charnyetski with open arms, entertained him with
food and drink, did not let him go till morning; but in the morning the
two armies were joined, and marched farther under command of
Charnyetski.

Near Syenyava the Poles attacked the Swedes again with such effect that
they cut the rearguard to pieces and brought disorder into the main
army. Only at daybreak did the artillery disperse them. At Lejaysk,
Charnyetski attacked with still greater vigor. Considerable detachments
of the Swedes were mired in soft places, caused by rains and
inundations, and those fell into the hands of the Poles. The roads
became of the worst for the Swedes. Exhausted, hungry, and tortured by
desire of sleep, the regiments barely marched. More and more soldiers
stopped on the way. Some were found so terribly reduced that they no
longer wished to eat or drink, they only begged for death. Others lay
down and died on hillocks; some lost presence of mind, and looked with
the greatest indifference on the approaching pursuers. Foreigners, who
were counted frequently in the ranks of the Swedes, began to disappear
from the camp and go over to Charnyetski. Only the unbroken spirit of
Karl Gustav held the remnant of its dying strength in the whole army.

For not only did an enemy follow the army; various “parties” under
unknown leaders and bands of peasants crossed its road continually.
Those bodies, unformed and not very numerous, could not, it is true,
strike it with offensive warfare, but they wearied it mortally. And
wishing to instil into the Swedes the conviction that Tartars had
already come with assistance, all the Polish troops gave forth the
Tartar shout; therefore “Allah! Allah!” was heard night and day without
a moment’s cessation. The Swedish soldiers could not draw breath, could
not put aside their armor for an instant. More than once a few men
alarmed the whole camp. Horses fell by tens, and were eaten
immediately; for the transport of provisions had become impossible.
From time to time the Polish horsemen found Swedish corpses terribly
disfigured; here they recognized at once the hands of peasants. The
greater part of the villages in the triangle between the San and the
Vistula belonged to the marshal and his relatives; therefore all the
peasants in those parts rose up as one man, for the marshal, unsparing
of his own fortune, had announced that whoever took up arms would be
freed from subjection. Scarcely had this news gone the round of the
region when the peasants put their scythes on staffs and began to bring
Swedish heads into camp: they brought them in every day till
Lyubomirski was forced to prohibit that custom as unchristian. Then
they brought in gloves and boots. The Swedes, driven to desperation,
flayed those who fell into their hands; and the war became more and
more dreadful. Some of the Polish troops adhered yet to the Swedes, but
they adhered only through fear. On the road to Lejaysk many of them
deserted; those who remained made such tumults in the camp daily that
Karl Gustav gave orders to shoot a number of officers. This was the
signal for a general withdrawal, which was effected sabre in hand. Few,
if any, Poles remained; but Charnyetski, gaining new strength, attacked
with still greater vigor.

The marshal gave most effectual assistance. During this period, which
by the way was short, the nobler sides of Lyubomirski’s nature gained,
perhaps, the upper hand over his pride and self-love; therefore he
omitted no toil, he spared neither his health nor his person, he led
squadrons frequently, gave the enemy no rest; and as he was a good
soldier he rendered good services. These, added to his later ones,
would have secured him a glorious memory in the nation, were it not for
that shameless rebellion which toward the end of his career he raised
in order to hinder the reform of the Commonwealth.

But at this time he did everything to win glory, and he covered himself
with it as with a robe. Pan Vitovski, the castellan of Sandomir, an old
and experienced soldier, vied with him. Vitovski wished to equal
Charnyetski himself; but he could not, for God had denied him
greatness.

All three crushed the Swedes more and more, and with such effect that
the infantry and cavalry regiments, to whom it came to form the
rearguard on the retreat, marched with so much fear that a panic arose
among them from the slightest cause. Then Karl Gustav decided to march
always with the rearguard, so as to give courage by his presence.

But in the very beginning he almost paid for this position with his
life. It happened that having with him a detachment of the
life-guards,—the largest of all the regiments, for the soldiers in it
were selected from the whole Scandinavian people,—the king stopped for
refreshment at the village of Rudnik. When he had dined with the parish
priest he decided to sleep a little, since he had not closed his eyes
the night preceding. The life-guards surrounded the house, to watch
over the safety of the king. Meanwhile the priest’s horse-boy stole
away from the village, and coming up to a mare in the field, sprang
upon her colt and raced off to Charnyetski.

Charnyetski was ten miles distant at this time; but his vanguard,
composed of the regiment of Prince Dymitri Vishnyevetski, was marching
under Shandarovski, the lieutenant, about two miles behind the Swedes.
Shandarovski was just talking to Roh Kovalski, who had ridden up that
moment with orders from Charnyetski, when suddenly both saw the lad
flying toward them at all horse speed.

“What devil is that racing up so,” asked Shandarovski, “and besides on
a colt?”

“Some village lad,” said Kovalski.

Meanwhile the boy had ridden to the front of the rank, and only stopped
when the colt, frightened at horses and men, stood on his hind legs and
dug his hoofs into the earth. The youth sprang off, and holding the
colt by the mane, bowed to the knights.

“Well, what have you to say?” asked the lieutenant, approaching him.

“The Swedes are with us at the priest’s house; they say that the king
himself is among them!” said the youth, with sparkling eyes.

“Many of them?”

“Not more than two hundred horses.”

Shandarovski’s eyes now flashed in their turn; but he was afraid of an
ambush, therefore he looked threateningly at the boy and asked,—

“Who sent you?”

“Who was to send me? I jumped myself on the colt, I came near falling,
and lost my cap. It is well that the Swedish carrion did not see me!”

Truth was beating out of the sunburned face of the youth; he had
evidently a great animosity against the Swedes,—he was panting, his
cheeks were burning, he stood before the officers holding the mane of
the colt with one hand, his hair disordered, the shirt open on his
bosom.

“Where is the rest of the Swedish army?” asked the lieutenant.

“At daybreak so many passed that we could not count them; those went
farther, only cavalry remained. But there is one sleeping at the
priest’s, and they say that he is the king.”

“Boy,” answered Shandarovski, “if you are lying, your head will fall;
but if you speak the truth, ask what you please.”

“As true as I live! I want nothing unless the great mighty lord officer
would command to give me a sabre.”

“Give him some blade,” cried Shandarovski to his attendants, completely
convinced now.

The other officers fell to inquiring of the boy where the house was,
where the village, what the Swedes were doing.

“The dogs! they are watching. If you go straight they will see you; but
I will take you behind the alder grove.”

Orders were given at once, and the squadron moved on, first at a trot
and then at a gallop. The youth rode before the first rank bareback on
his colt without a bridle. He urged the colt with his heels, and every
little while looked with sparkling eyes on the naked sabre.

When the village was in sight, he turned out of the willows and led by
a somewhat muddy road to the alder grove, in which it was still
muddier; therefore they slackened the speed of the horses.

“Watch!” said the boy; “they are about ten rods on the right from the
end of the alder grove.”

They advanced now very slowly, for the road was difficult and heavy;
the cavalry horses sank frequently to their knees. At last the alder
grove began to grow thinner, and they came to the edge of the open
space.

Not more than three hundred yards distant, they saw a broad square
rising somewhat, and in it the priest’s house surrounded by poplars,
among which were to be seen the tops of straw beehives. On the square
were two hundred horsemen in rimmed helmets and breastplates.

The great horsemen sat on enormous lean horses, and were in
readiness,—some with rapiers at their shoulders, others with muskets on
their thighs; but they were looking in another direction toward the
main road, from which alone they expected the enemy. A splendid blue
standard with a golden lion was waving above their heads.

Farther on, around the house stood guards by twos. One was turned
toward the alder grove; but because the sun shone brightly and struck
his eyes, and in the alders, which were already covered with thick
leaves, it was almost dark, he could not see the Polish horsemen.

In Shandarovski, a fiery horseman, the blood began to boil like water
in a pot; but he restrained himself and waited till the ranks should be
in order. Meanwhile Roh Kovalski put his heavy hand on the shoulder of
the youth,—

“Listen, horsefly!” said he; “have you seen the king?”

“I saw him, great mighty lord!” whispered the lad.

“How did he look? How can he be known?”

“He is terribly black in the face, and wears red ribbons at his side.”

“Did you see his horse?”

“The horse is black, with a white face.”

“Look out, and show him to me.”

“I will. But shall we go quickly?”

“Shut your mouth!”

Here they were silent; and Roh began to pray to the Most Holy Lady to
permit him to meet Karl, and to direct his hand at the meeting.

The silence continued still a moment, then the horse under Shandarovski
himself snorted. At that the horseman on guard looked, quivered as if
something had been thrown at his saddle, and fired his pistol.

“Allah! Allah! Kill, slay! Uha-u, slay!” was heard in the alder grove;
and the squadron, coming out of the shadow like lightning, rushed at
the Swedes.

They struck into the smoke before all could turn front to them, and a
terrible hewing began; only sabres and rapiers were used, for no man
had time to fire. In the twinkle of an eye the Poles pushed the Swedes
to the fence, which fell with a rattle under the pressure of the
horses’ rumps, and the Poles began to slash them so madly that they
were crowded and confused. Twice they tried to close, and twice torn
asunder they formed two separate bodies which in a twinkle divided into
smaller groups; at last they were scattered as peas thrown by a peasant
through the air with a shovel.

All at once were heard despairing voices: “The king, the king! Save the
king!”

But Karl Gustav, at the first moment of the encounter, with pistols in
hand and a sword in his teeth, rushed out. The trooper who held the
horse at the door gave him the beast that moment; the king sprang on,
and turning the corner, rushed between the poplars and the beehives to
escape by the rear from the circle of battle.

Reaching the fence he spurred his horse, sprang over, and fell into the
group of his men who were defending themselves against the right wing
of the Poles, who had just surrounded the house and were fighting with
the Swedes behind the garden.

“To the road!” cried Karl Gustav. And overturning with the hilt of his
sword the Polish horseman who was raising his sabre above him, with one
spring he came out of the whirl of the fight; the Swedes broke the
Polish rank and sprang after him with all their force, as a herd of
deer hunted by dogs rush whither they are led by their leader.

The Polish horsemen turned their horses after them, and the chase
began. Both came out on the highroad from Rudnik to Boyanovka. They
were seen from the front yard where the main battle was raging, and
just then it was that the voices were heard crying,—

“The king, the king! Save the king!”

But the Swedes in the front yard were so pressed by Shandarovski that
they could not think even of saving themselves; the king raced on then
with a party of not more than twelve men, while after him were chasing
nearly thirty, and at the head of them all Roh Kovalski.

The lad who was to point out the king was involved somewhere in the
general battle, but Roh himself recognized Karl Gustav by the knot of
red ribbons. Then he thought that his opportunity had come; he bent in
the saddle, pressed his horse with the spurs, and rushed on like a
whirlwind.

The pursued, straining the last strength from their horses, stretched
along over the broad road. But the swifter and lighter Polish horses
began soon to gain on them. Roh came up very quickly with the hindmost
Swede; he rose in his stirrups for a better blow, and cut terribly;
with one awful stroke he took off the arm and the shoulder, and rushed
on like the wind, fastening his eyes again on the king.

The next horseman was black before his eyes; he hurled him down. He
split the head and the helmet of the third, and tore farther, having
the king, and the king only, in his eye. Now the horses of the Swedes
began to pant and fall; a crowd of Polish horsemen overtook them and
cut down the riders in a twinkle.

Roh had already passed horses and men, so as not to lose time; the
distance between him and Karl Gustav began to decrease. There were only
two men between him and the king.

Now an arrow, sent from a bow by some one of the Poles, sang near the
ear of Pan Roh, and sank in the loins of the rider rushing before him.
The man trembled to the right and the left; at last he bent backward,
bellowed with an unearthly voice, and fell from the saddle.

Between Roh and the king there was now only one man. But that one,
wishing evidently to save the king, instead of helping turned his
horse. Kovalski came up, and a cannonball does not sweep a man from the
saddle as he hurled him to the ground; then, giving a fearful shout, he
rushed forward like a furious stag.

The king might perhaps have met him, and would have perished
inevitably; but others were flying on behind Roh, and arrows began to
whistle; any moment one of them might wound his horse. The king,
therefore, pressed his heels more closely, bent his head to the mane,
and shot through the space in front of him like a sparrow pursued by a
hawk.

But Roh began not only to prick his own horse with the spurs, but to
beat him with the side of the sabre; and so they sped on one after the
other. Trees, stones, willows, flashed before their eyes; the wind
whistled in their ears. The king’s hat fell from his head; at last he
threw down his purse, thinking that the pitiless rider might be tempted
by it and leave the pursuit; but Kovalski did not look at the purse,
and rolled his horse on with more and more power till the beast was
groaning from effort.

Roh had evidently forgotten himself altogether; for racing onward he
began to shout in a voice in which besides threats there was also a
prayer,—

“Stop, for God’s mercy!”

Then the king’s horse stumbled so violently that if the king had not
held the bridle with all his power the beast would have fallen. Roh
bellowed like an aurochs; the distance dividing him from Karl Gustav
had decreased notably.

After a while the steed stumbled a second time, and again before the
king brought him to his feet Roh had approached a number of yards.

Then he straightened himself in the saddle as if for a blow. He was
terrible; his eyes were bursting out, his teeth were gleaming from
under his reddish mustaches. One more stumble of the horse, another
moment, and the fate of the Commonwealth, of all Sweden, of the entire
war would have been decided. But the king’s horse began to run again;
and the king, turning, showed the barrels of two pistols, and twice did
he fire.

One of the bullets shattered the knee of Kovalski’s horse; he reared,
then fell on his forefeet, and dug the earth with his nose.

The king might have rushed that moment on his pursuer and thrust him
through with his rapier; but at the distance of two hundred yards other
Polish horsemen were flying forward; so he bent down again in his
saddle, and shot on like an arrow propelled from the bow of a Tartar.

Kovalski freed himself from his horse. He looked for a while
unconsciously at the fleeing man, then staggered like one drunk, sat on
the road, and began to roar like a bear.

But the king was each instant farther, farther, farther! He began to
diminish, to melt, and then vanished in the dark belt of pine scrub.

Meanwhile, with shouting and roaring, came on Kovalski’s companions.
There were fifteen of them whose horses held out. One brought the
king’s purse, another his hat, on which black ostrich feathers were
fastened with diamonds. These two began to cry out,—

“These are yours, comrade! they belong to you of right.”

Others asked: “Do you know whom you were chasing? That was Karl
himself.”

“As God is true! In his life he has never fled before any man as before
you. You have covered yourself with immense glory!”

“And how many men did you put down before you came up with the king?”

“You lacked only little of freeing the Commonwealth in one flash, with
your sabre.”

“Take the purse!”

“Take the hat!”

“The horse was good, but you can buy ten such with these treasures.”

Roh gazed at his comrades with dazed eyes; at last he sprang up and
shouted,—

“I am Kovalski, and this is Pani Kovalski! Go to all the devils!”

“His mind is disturbed!” cried they.

“Give me a horse! I’ll catch him yet,” shouted Roh.

But they took him by the arms, and though he struggled they brought him
back to Rudnik, pacifying and comforting him along the road.

“You gave him Peter!” cried they. “See what has come to this victor,
this conqueror of so many towns and villages!”

“Ha, ha! He has found out Polish cavaliers!”

“He will grow tired of the Commonwealth. He has come to close
quarters.”

“Vivat, Roh Kovalski!”

“Vivat, vivat, the most manful cavalier, the pride of the whole army!”

And they fell to drinking out of their canteens. They gave Roh one, and
he emptied the bottle at a draught.

During the pursuit of the king along the Boyanovka road the Swedes
defended themselves in front of the priest’s house with bravery worthy
of their renowned regiment. Though attacked suddenly and scattered very
quickly, they rallied as quickly around their blue standard, for the
reason that they were surrounded by a dense crowd. Not one of them
asked for quarter, but standing horse to horse, shoulder to shoulder,
they thrust so fiercely with their rapiers that for a time victory
seemed to incline to their side. It was necessary either to break them
again, which became impossible since a line of Polish horsemen
surrounded them completely, or to cut them to pieces. Shandarovski
recognized the second plan as the better; therefore encircling the
Swedes with a still closer ring, he sprang on them like a wounded
falcon on a flock of long-billed cranes. A savage slaughter and press
began. Sabres rattled against rapiers, rapiers were broken on the hilts
of sabres. Sometimes a horse rose, like a dolphin above the sea waves,
and in a moment fell in the whirl of men and horses. Shouts ceased;
there were heard only the cry of horses, the sharp clash of steel,
gasping from the panting breasts of the knights; uncommon fury had
mastered the hearts of Poles and Swedes. They fought with fragments of
sabres and rapiers; they closed with one another like hawks, caught one
another by the hair, by mustaches, gnawed with their teeth; those who
had fallen from their horses and were yet able to stand stabbed with
their knives horses in the belly and men in the legs; in the smoke, in
the steam from horses, in the terrible frenzy of battle, men were
turned into giants and gave the blows of giants; arms became clubs,
sabres lightning. Steel helmets were broken at a blow, like earthen
pots; heads were cleft; arms holding sabres were swept away. They hewed
without rest; they hewed without mercy, without pity. From under the
whirl of men and horses blood began to flow along the yard in streams.

The great blue standard was waving yet above the Swedish circle, but
the circle diminished with each moment. As when harvesters attack grain
from two sides, and the sickles begin to glitter, the standing grain
disappears and the men see one another more nearly each moment, thus
did the Polish ring become ever narrower, and those fighting on one
side could see the bent sabres fighting on the opposite side.

Pan Shandarovski was wild as a hurricane, and ate into the Swedes as a
famished wolf buries his jaws in the flesh of a freshly killed horse;
but one horseman surpassed him in fury, and that was the youth who had
first let them know that the Swedes were in Rudnik, and now had sprung
in with the whole squadron on the enemy. The priest’s colt, three years
old, which till that time had walked quietly over the land, shut in by
the horses, could not break out of the throng; you would have said he
had gone mad, like his master. With ears thrown back, with eyes
bursting out of his bead, with erect mane, he pushed forward, bit, and
kicked; but the lad struck with his sabre as with a flail; he struck at
random, to the right, to the left, straight ahead; his yellow forelock
was covered with blood, the points of rapiers had been thrust into his
shoulders and legs, his face was cut; but these wounds only roused him.
He fought with madness, like a man who has despaired of life and wishes
only to avenge his own death.

But now the Swedish body had decreased like a pile of snow on which men
are throwing hot water from every side. At last around the king’s
standard less than twenty men remained. The Polish swarm had covered
them completely, and they were dying gloomily, with set teeth; no hand
was stretched forth, no man asked for mercy. Now in the crowd were
heard voices: “Seize the standard! The standard!”

When he heard this, the lad pricked his colt and rushed on like a
flame. When every Swede had two or three Polish horsemen against him,
the lad slashed the standard-bearer in the mouth; he opened his arms,
and fell on the horse’s mane. The blue standard fell with him.

The nearest Swede, shouting terribly, grasped after the staff at once;
but the boy caught the standard itself, and pulling, tore it off in a
twinkle, wound it in a bundle, and holding it with both hands to his
breast, began to shout to the sky,—

“I have it, I won’t give it! I have it, I won’t give it!”

The last remaining Swedes rushed at him with rage; one thrust the flag
through, and cut his shoulder.

Then a number of men stretched their bloody hands to the lad, and
cried: “Give the standard, give the standard!”

Shandarovski sprang to his aid, and commanded: “Let him alone! He took
it before my eyes; let him give it to Charnyetski himself.”

“Charnyetski is coming!” cried a number of voices.

In fact, from a distance trumpets were heard; and on the road from the
side of the field appeared a whole squadron, galloping to the priest’s
house. It was the Lauda squadron; and at the head of it rode
Charnyetski himself. When the men had ridden up, seeing that all was
over, they halted; and Shandarovski’s soldiers began to hurry toward
them.

Shandarovski himself hastened with a report to the castellan; but he
was so exhausted that at first he could not catch breath, for he
trembled as in a fever, and the voice broke in his throat every moment.

“The king himself was here: I don’t know—whether he has escaped!”

“He has, he has!” answered those who had seen the pursuit.

“The standard is taken! There are many killed!”

Charnyetski, without saying a word, hurried to the scene of the
struggle, where a cruel and woful sight presented itself. More than two
hundred bodies of Swedes and Poles were lying like a pavement, one at
the side of the other, and often one above the other. Sometimes one
held another by the hair; some had died biting or tearing one another
with their nails; and some again were closed as in a brotherly embrace,
or they lay one with his head on the breast of his enemy. Many faces
were so trampled that there remained nothing human in them; those not
crushed by hoofs had their eyes open full of terror, the fierceness of
battle, and rage. Blood spattered on the softened earth under the feet
of Charnyetski’s horse, which were soon red above the fetlocks; the
odor of blood and the sweat of horses irritated the nostrils and
stopped breath in the breast.

The castellan looked on those corpses of men as the agriculturist looks
on bound sheaves of wheat which are to fill out his stacks.
Satisfaction was reflected on his face. He rode around the priest’s
house in silence, looked at the bodies lying on the other side, beyond
the garden; then returned slowly to the chief scene.

“I see genuine work here, and I am satisfied with you, gentlemen.”

They hurled up their caps with bloody hands.

“Vivat Charnyetski!”

“God grant another speedy meeting. Vivat! vivat!”

And the castellan said: “You will go to the rear for rest. But who took
the standard?”

“Give the lad this way!” cried Shandarovski; “where is he?”

The soldiers sprang for him, and found him sitting at the wall of the
stable near the colt, which had fallen from wounds and was just
breathing out his last breath. At the first glance it did not seem that
the lad would last long, but he held the standard with both hands to
his breast.

They bore him away at once, and brought him before Charnyetski. The
youth stood there barefoot, with disordered hair, with naked breast,
his shirt and his jacket in shreds, smeared with Swedish blood and his
own, tottering, bewildered, but with unquenched fire in his eyes.

Charnyetski was astounded at sight of him. “How is this?” asked he.
“Did he take the royal standard?”

“With his own hand and his own blood,” answered Shandarovski. “He was
the first also to let us know of the Swedes; and afterward, in the
thickest of the whirl, he did so much that he surpassed me and us all.”

“It is truth, genuine truth, as if some one had written it!” cried
others.

“What is thy name?” asked Charnyetski of the lad.

“Mihalko.”

“Whose art thou?”

“The priest’s.”

“Thou hast been the priest’s, but thou wilt be thy own!” said
Charnyetski.

Mihalko heard not the last words, for from his wounds and the loss of
blood he tottered and fell, striking the castellan’s stirrup with his
head.

“Take him and give him every care. I am the guaranty that at the first
Diet he will be the equal of you all in rank, as to-day he is the equal
in spirit.”

“He deserves it! he deserves it!” cried the nobles.

Then they took Mihalko on a stretcher, and bore him to the priest’s
house.

Charnyetski listened to the further report, which not Shandarovski
gave, but those who had seen the pursuit of the king by Roh Kovalski.
He was wonderfully delighted with that narrative, so that he caught his
head, and struck his thighs with his hands; for he understood that
after such an adventure the spirit must fall considerably in Karl
Gustav.

Zagloba was not less delighted, and putting his hands on his hips, said
proudly to the knights,—

“Ha! he is a robber, isn’t he? If he had reached Karl, the devil
himself could not have saved the king! He is my blood, as God is dear
to me, my blood!”

In course of time Zagloba believed that he was Roh Kovalski’s uncle.

Charnyetski gave orders to find the young knight; but they could not
find him, for Roh, from shame and mortification, had crept into a barn,
and burying himself in the straw, had fallen asleep so soundly that he
came up with the squadron only two days later. But he still suffered
greatly, and dared not show himself before the eyes of his uncle. His
uncle, however, sought him out, and began to comfort him,—

“Be not troubled, Roh!” said he. “As it is, you have covered yourself
with great glory; I have myself heard the castellan praise you: ‘To the
eye a fool,’ said he, ‘so that he looks as though he could not count
three, and I see that he is a fiery cavalier who has raised the
reputation of the whole army.’”

“The Lord Jesus has not blessed me,” said Roh; “for I got drunk the day
before, and forgot my prayers.”

“Don’t try to penetrate the judgments of God, lest you add blasphemy to
other deeds. Whatever you can take on your shoulders take, but take
nothing on your mind; if you do, you will fail.”

“But I was so near that the sweat from his horse was flying to me. I
should have cut him to the saddle! Uncle thinks that I have no reason
whatever!”

“Every creature,” said Zagloba, “has its reason. You are a sprightly
lad, Roh, and you will give me comfort yet more than once. God grant
your sons to have the same reason in their fists that you have!”

“I do not want that! I am Kovalski, and this is Pani Kovalski.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

After the affair at Rudnik the king advanced farther toward the point
of the wedge between the San and the Vistula, and did not cease as
before to march with the rearguard; for he was not only a famous
leader, but a knight of unrivalled daring. Charnyetski, Vitovski, and
Lyubomirski followed, and urged him on as a wild beast is urged to a
trap. Detached parties made an uproar night and day around the Swedes.
The retreating troops had less and less provisions; they were more and
more wearied and drooping in courage, looking forward to certain
destruction.

At last the Swedes enclosed themselves in the very corner where the two
rivers meet, and rested. On one side the Vistula defended them, on the
other the San, both overflowed, as usual in springtime; the third side
of the triangle the king fortified with strong intrenchments, in which
cannons were mounted.

That was a position not to be taken, but it was possible to die there
from hunger. But even in that regard the Swedes gained better courage,
for they hoped that the commandants would send them provisions by water
from Cracow and other river fortresses. For instance, right there at
hand was Sandomir, in which Colonel Schinkler had collected
considerable supplies. He sent these in at once; therefore the Swedes
ate, drank, slept; and when they woke they sang Lutheran psalms,
praising God that he had saved them from such dire distress.

But Charnyetski was preparing new blows for them.

Sandomir in Swedish hands could always come to the aid of the main
army. Charnyetski planned, therefore, to take the town with the castle
at a blow, and cut off the Swedes.

“We will prepare a cruel spectacle for them,” said he, at a council of
war. “They will look on from the opposite bank when we strike the town,
and they will not be able to give aid across the Vistula; and when we
have Sandomir we will not let provisions come from Wirtz in Cracow.”

Lyubomirski, Vitovski, and others tried to dissuade Charnyetski from
that undertaking. “It would be well,” said they, “to take such a
considerable town, and we might injure the Swedes greatly; but how are
we to take it? We have no infantry, siege guns we have not; it would be
hard for cavalry to attack walls.”

“But do our peasants,” asked Charnyetski, “fight badly as infantry? If
I had two thousand such as Mihalko, I would take not only Sandomir, but
Warsaw.”

And without listening to further counsel he crossed the Vistula. Barely
had his summons gone through the neighborhood when a couple of thousand
men hurried to him, one with a scythe, another with a musket, the third
with carabine; and they marched against Sandomir.

They fell upon the place rather suddenly, and in the streets a fierce
conflict set in. The Swedes defended themselves furiously from the
windows and the roofs, but they could not withstand the onrush. They
were crushed like worms in the houses, and pushed entirely out of the
town. Schinkler took refuge, with the remnant of his forces, in the
castle; but the Poles followed him with the same impetuosity. A storm
against the gates and the walls began, Schinkler saw that he could not
hold out, even in the castle; so he collected what he could of men,
articles and supplies of provisions, and putting them on boats, crossed
to the king, who looked from the other bank on the defeat of his men
without being able to succor them.

The castle fell into the hands of the Poles; but the cunning Swede when
departing put under the walls in the cellars kegs of powder with
lighted matches.

When he appeared before the king he told him of this at once, so as to
rejoice his heart.

“The castle,” said he, “will fly into the air with all the men.
Charnyetski may perish.”

“If that is true, I want myself to see how the pious Poles will fly to
heaven,” said the king; and he remained on the spot with all the
generals.

In spite of the commands of Charnyetski, who foresaw deceit, the
volunteers and the peasants ran around through the whole castle to seek
hidden Swedes and treasure. The trumpets sounded an alarm for every man
to take refuge in the town; but the searchers in the castle did not
hear the trumpets, or would not heed them.

All at once the ground trembled under their feet, an awful thunder and
a roar tore the air, a gigantic pillar of fire rose to the sky, hurling
upward earth, walls, roofs, the whole castle, and more than five
hundred bodies of those who had not been able to withdraw.

Karl Gustav held his sides from delight, and his favor-seeking
courtiers began at once to repeat his words: “The Poles are going to
heaven, to heaven!”

But that joy was premature; for none the less did Sandomir remain in
Polish hands, and could no longer furnish food for the main army
enclosed between the rivers.

Charnyetski disposed his camp opposite the Swedes, on the other side of
the Vistula, and guarded the passage.

Sapyeha, grand hetman of Lithuania and voevoda of Vilna, came from the
other side and took his position on the San.

The Swedes were invested completely; they were caught as it were in a
vise.

“The trap is closed!” said the soldiers to one another in the Polish
camps.

For every man, even the least acquainted with military art, understood
that inevitable destruction was hanging over the invaders, unless
reinforcements should come in time and rescue them from trouble.

The Swedes too understood this. Every morning officers and soldiers,
coming to the shore of the Vistula, looked with despair in their eyes
and their hearts at the legions of Charnyetski’s terrible cavalry
standing black on the other side.

Then they went to the San; there again the troops of Sapyeha were
watching day and night, ready to receive them with sabre and musket.

To cross either the San or the Vistula while both armies stood near was
not to be thought of. The Swedes might return to Yaroslav by the same
road over which they come, but they knew that in that case not one of
them would ever see Sweden.

For the Swedes grievous days and still more grievous nights now began,
for these days and nights were uproarious and quarrelsome. Again
provisions were at an end.

Meanwhile Charnyetski, leaving command of the army to Lyubomirski and
taking the Lauda squadron as guard crossed the Vistula above the mouth
of the San, to visit Sapyeha and take counsel with him touching the
future of the war.

This time the mediation of Zagloba was not needed to make the two
leaders agree; for both loved the country more than each one himself,
both were ready to sacrifice to it private interests, self-love, and
ambition.

The Lithuanian hetman did not envy Charnyetski, nor did Charnyetski
envy the hetman, but each did homage to the other; so the meeting
between them was of such character that tears stood in the eyes of the
oldest soldiers.

“The Commonwealth is growing, the dear country is rejoicing, when such
sons of heroes take one another by the shoulders,” said Zagloba to Pan
Michael and Pan Yan. “Charnyetski is a terrible soldier and a true
soul, but put Sapyeha to a wound and it will heal. Would there were
more such men! The skin would fly off the Swedes, could they see this
love of the greatest patriots. How did they conquer us, if not through
the rancor and envy of magnates? Have they overcome us with force? This
is how I understand! The soul jumps in a man’s body at sight of such a
meeting. I will guarantee, too, that it will not be dry; for Sapyeha
loves a feast wonderfully, and with such a friend he will willingly let
himself out.”

“God is merciful! the evil will pass,” said Pan Yan.

“Be careful that you do not blaspheme,” said Zagloba; “every evil must
pass, for should it last forever it would prove that the Devil governs
the world, and not the Lord Jesus, who has mercy inexhaustible.”

Their further conversation was interrupted by the sight of Babinich,
whose lofty form they saw from a distance over the wave of other heads.

Pan Michael and Zagloba began to beckon to him, but he was so much
occupied in looking at Charnyetski that he did not notice them at
first.

“See,” said Zagloba, “how thin the man has grown!”

“It must be that he has not done much against Boguslav,” said
Volodyovski; “otherwise he would be more joyful.”

“It is sure that he has not, for Boguslav is before Marienburg with
Steinbock, acting against the fortress.”

“There is hope in God that he will do nothing.”

“Even if he should take Marienburg,” said Zagloba, “we will capture
Karl Gustav right away; we shall see if they will not give the fortress
for the king.”

“See! Babinich is coming to us!” interrupted Pan Yan.

He had indeed seen them, and was pushing the crowd to both sides; he
motioned with his cap, smiling at them from a distance. They greeted
one another as good friends and acquaintances.

“What is to be heard? What have you done with the prince?” asked
Zagloba.

“Evil, evil! But there is no time to tell of it. We shall sit down to
table at once. You will remain here for the night; come to me after the
feast to pass the night among my Tartars. I have a comfortable cabin;
we will talk at the cups till morning.”

“The moment a man says a wise thing it is not I who will oppose,” said
Zagloba. “But tell us why you have grown so thin?”

“That hell-dweller overthrew me and my horse like an earthen pot, so
that from that time I am spitting fresh blood and cannot recover. There
is hope in the mercy of our Lord Christ that I shall let the blood out
of him yet. But let us go now, for Sapyeha and Charnyetski are
beginning to make declarations and to be ceremonious about
precedence,—a sign that the tables are ready. We wait for you here with
great pleasure, for you have shed Swedish pig-blood in plenty.”

“Let others speak of what I have done,” said Zagloba; “it does not
become me.”

Meanwhile whole throngs moved on, and all went to the square between
the tents on which were placed tables. Sapyeha in honor of Charnyetski
entertained like a king. The table at which Charnyetski was seated was
covert with Swedish flags. Mead and wine flowed from vats, so that
toward the end both leaders became somewhat joyous. There was no lack
of gladsomeness, of jests, of toasts, of noise; though the weather was
marvellous, and the sun warm beyond wonder. Finally the cool of the
evening separated the feasters.

Then Kmita took his guests to the Tartars. They sat down in his tent on
trunks packed closely with every kind of booty, and began to speak of
Kmita’s expedition.

“Boguslav is now before Marienburg,” said Pan Andrei, “though some say
that he is at the elector’s, with whom he is to march to the relief of
the king.”

“So much the better; then we shall meet! You young fellows do not know
how to manage him; let us see what the old man will do. He has met with
various persons, but not yet with Zagloba. I say that we shall meet,
though Prince Yanush in his will advised him to keep far from Zagloba.”

“The elector is a cunning man,” said Pan Yan; “and if he sees that it
is going ill with Karl, he will drop all his promises and his oath.”

“But I tell you that he will not,” said Zagloba. “No one is so venomous
against us as the Prussian. When your servant who had to work under
your feet and brush your clothes becomes your master by change of
fortune, he will be sterner to you, the kinder you were to him.”

“But why is that?” asked Pan Michael.

“His previous condition of service will remain in his mind, and he will
avenge himself on you for it, though you have been to him kindness
itself.”

“What of that?” asked Pan Michael. “It often happens that a dog bites
his master in the hand. Better let Babinich tell about his expedition.”

“We are listening,” said Pan Yan.

Kmita, after he had been silent awhile, drew breath and began to tell
of the last campaign of Sapyeha against Boguslav, and the defeat of the
latter at Yanov; finally how Prince Boguslav had broken the Tartars,
overturned him with his horse, and escaped alive.

“But,” interrupted Volodyovski, “you said that you would follow him
with your Tartars, even to the Baltic.”

“And you told me also in your time,” replied Kmita, “how Pan Yan here
present, when Bogun carried off his beloved maiden, forgot her and
revenge because the country was in need. A man becomes like those with
whom he keeps company; I have joined you, gentlemen, and I wish to
follow your example.”

“May the Mother of God reward you, as she has Pan Yan!” said Zagloba.
“Still I would rather your maiden were in the wilderness than in
Boguslav’s hands.”

“That is nothing!” exclaimed Pan Michael; “you will find her!”

“I have to find not only her person, but her regard and love.”

“One will come after the other,” said Pan Michael, “even if you had to
take her person by force, as at that time—you remember?”

“I shall not do such a deed again.”

Here Pan Andrei sighed deeply, and after a while he said, “Not only
have I not found her, but Boguslav has taken another from me.”

“A pure Turk! as God is dear to me!” cried Zagloba.

And Pan Yan inquired: “What other?”

“Oh, it is a long story, a long story,” said Kmita. “There was a maiden
in Zamost, wonderfully fair, who pleased Pan Zamoyski. He, fearing
Princess Vishnyevetski, his sister, did not dare to be over-bold before
her; he planned, therefore, to send the maiden away with me, as if to
Sapyeha, to find an inheritance in Lithuania, but in reality to take
her from me about two miles from Zamost, and put her in some wilderness
where no one could stand in his way. But I sounded his intention. You
want, thought I to myself, to make a pander of me; wait! I flogged his
men, and the lady in all maidenly honor I brought to Sapyeha. Well, I
say to you that the girl is as beautiful as a goldfinch, but honest. I
am now another man, and my comrades, the Lord light their souls! are
long ago dust in the earth.”

“What sort of maiden was she?” asked Zagloba.

“From a respectable house, a lady-in-waiting on Princess Griselda. She
was once engaged to a Lithuanian, Podbipienta, whom you, gentlemen,
knew.”

“Anusia Borzobogati!” shouted Volodyovski, springing from his place.

Zagloba jumped up too from a pile of felt. “Pan Michael, restrain
yourself!”

But Volodyovski sprang like a cat toward Kmita. “Is it you, traitor,
who let Boguslav carry her off?”

“Be not unjust to me,” said Kmita. “I took her safely to the hetman,
having as much care for her as for my own sister. Boguslav seized her,
not from me, but from another officer with whom Pan Sapyeha sent her to
his own family; his name was Glovbich or something, I do not remember
well.”

“Where is he now?”

“He is no longer living, he was slain; so at least Sapyeha’s officers
said. I was attacking Boguslav separately, with the Tartars; therefore
I know nothing accurately save what I have told you. But noticing your
changed face, I see that a similar thing has met us; the same man has
wronged us, and since that is the case let us join against him to
avenge the wrong and take vengeance in company. He is a great lord and
a great knight, and still I think it will be narrow for him in the
whole Commonwealth, if he has two such enemies.”

“Here is my hand!” said Volodyovski. “Henceforth we are friends for
life and death. Whoever meets him first will pay him for both. God
grant me to meet him first, for that I will let his blood out is as
sure as that there is Amen in ‘Our Father.’”

Here Pan Michael began to move his mustaches terribly and to feel of
his sabre. Zagloba was frightened, for he knew that with Pan Michael
there was no joking.

“I should not care to be Prince Boguslav now,” said he, “even if some
one should add Livonia to my title. It is enough to have such a wildcat
as Kmita against one, but what will he do with Pan Michael? And that is
not all; I will conclude an alliance with you. My head, your sabres! I
do not know as there is a potentate in Christendom who could stand
against such an alliance. Besides, the Lord God will sooner or later
take away his luck, for it cannot be that for a traitor and a heretic
there is no punishment; as it is, Kmita has given it to him terribly.”

“I do not deny that more than one confusion has met him from me,” said
Pan Andrei. And giving orders to fill the goblets, he told how he had
freed Soroka from captivity. But he did not tell how he had cast
himself first at the feet of Radzivill, for at the very thought of that
his blood boiled.

Pan Michael was rejoiced while hearing the narrative, and said at the
end,—

“May God aid you, Yendrek! With such a daring man one could go to hell.
The only trouble is that we shall not always campaign together, for
service is service. They may send me to one end of the Commonwealth and
you to the other. It is not known which will meet him first.”

Kmita was silent a moment.

“In justice I should reach him—if only I do not come out again with
confusion, for I am ashamed to acknowledge that I cannot meet that
hell-dweller hand to hand.”

“Then I will teach you all my secrets,” said Pan Michael.

“Or I!” said Zagloba.

“Pardon me, your grace, I prefer to learn from Michael,” said Kmita.

“Though he is such a knight, still I and Pani Kovalski are not afraid
of him, if only I had a good sleep,” put in Roh.

“Be quiet, Roh!” answered Zagloba; “may God not punish you through his
hand for boasting.”

“Oh, tfu! nothing will happen to me from him.”

Poor Kovalski was an unlucky prophet, but it was steaming terribly from
his forelock, and he was ready to challenge the whole world to single
combat. Others too drank heavily to one another, and to the destruction
of Boguslav and the Swedes.

“I have heard,” said Kmita, “that as soon as we rub out the Swedes here
and take the king, we shall march straight to Warsaw. Then surely there
will be an end of the war. After that will come the elector’s turn.”

“Oh, that’s it! that’s it!” said Zagloba.

“I heard Sapyeha say that once, and he, as a great man, calculates
better than others; he said: ‘There will be a truce with the Swedes;
with the Northerners there is one already, but with the elector we
should not make any conditions. Pan Charnyetski,’ he says, ‘will go
with Lyubomirski to Brandenburg, and I with the treasurer of Lithuania
to Electoral Prussia; and if after that we do not join Prussia to the
Commonwealth, it is because in our chancellery we have no such head as
Pan Zagloba, who in autograph letters threatened the elector.’”

“Did Sapyeha say that?” asked Zagloba, flushing from pleasure.

“All heard him. And I was terribly glad, for that same rod will flog
Boguslav; and if not earlier, we will surely reach him at that time.”

“If we can finish with these Swedes first,” said Zagloba. “Devil take
them! Let them give up Livland and a million, I will let them off
alive.”

“The Cossack caught the Tartar, and the Tartar is holding him by the
head!” said Pan Yan, laughing. “Karl is still in Poland; Cracow,
Warsaw, Poznan, and all the most noted towns are in his hands, and
father wants him to ransom himself. Hei, we shall have to work much at
him yet before we can think of the elector.”

“And there is Steinbock’s army, and the garrisons, and Wirtz,” put in
Pan Stanislav.

“But why do we sit here with folded hands?” asked Roh Kovalski, on a
sudden, with staring eyes; “cannot we beat the Swedes?”

“You are foolish, Roh,” said Zagloba.

“Uncle always says one thing; but as I am alive, I saw a boat at the
shore. We might go and carry off even the sentry. It is so dark that
you might strike a man on the snout and he wouldn’t know who did it;
before they could see we should return and exhibit the courage of
cavaliers to both commanders. If you do not wish to go, I will go
myself.”

“The dead calf moved his tail, wonder of wonders!” said Zagloba,
angrily.

But Kmita’s nostrils began to quiver at once. “Not a bad idea! not a
bad idea!” said he.

“Good for camp-followers, but not for him who regards dignity. Have
respect for yourselves! You are colonels, but you wish to amuse
yourselves with wandering thieves!”

“True, it is not very becoming,” added Volodyovski. “We would better go
to sleep.”

All agreed with that idea; therefore they kneeled down to their prayers
and repeated them aloud; after that they stretched themselves on the
felt cloth, and were soon sleeping the sleep of the just.

But an hour later all sprang to their feet, for beyond the river the
roaring of guns was heard; while shouts and tumult rose in Sapyeha’s
whole camp.

“Jesus! Mary!” exclaimed Zagloba. “The Swedes are coming!”

“What are you talking about?” asked Volodyovski, seizing his sabre.

“Roh, come here!” cried Zagloba, for in cases of surprise he was glad
to have his sister’s son near him.

But Roh was not in the tent.

They ran out on the square. Crowds were already before the tents, and
all were making their way toward the river, for on the other side was
to be seen flashing of fire, and an increasing roar was heard.

“What has happened, what has happened?” was asked of the numerous
guards disposed along the bank.

But the guards had seen nothing. One of the soldiers said that he had
heard as it were the plash of a wave, but as fog was hanging over the
water he could see nothing; he did not wish therefore to raise the camp
for a mere sound.

When Zagloba heard this he caught himself by the head in desperation,—

“Roh has gone to the Swedes! He said that he wished to carry off a
sentry.”

“For God’s sake, that may be!” cried Kmita.

“They will shoot the lad, as God is in heaven!” continued Zagloba, in
despair. “Worthy gentlemen, is there no help? Lord God, that boy was of
the purest gold; there is not another such in the two armies! What shot
that idea into his stupid head? Oh, Mother of God, save him in
trouble!”

“Maybe he will return; the fog is dense. They will not see him.”

“I will wait for him here even till morning. Mother of God, Mother of
God!”

Meanwhile shots on the opposite bank lessened, lights went out
gradually, and after an hour dull silence set in. Zagloba walked along
the bank of the river like a hen with ducklings, and tore out the
remnant of hair in his forelock; but he waited in vain, he despaired in
vain. The morning whitened the river, the sun rose, but Roh came not.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

Zagloba in unbroken despair betook himself to Charnyetski, with a
request that he would send to the Swedes to see what had happened to
Kovalski. Is he alive yet, is he groaning in captivity, or has he paid
with his life for his daring?

Charnyetski agreed to this willingly, for he loved Zagloba. Then
comforting him in his suffering, he said,—

“I think your sister’s son must be alive, otherwise the water would
have brought him ashore.”

“God grant that he is!” answered Zagloba; “still it would be hard for
the water to raise him, for not only had he a heavy hand, but his wit
was like lead, as is shown by his action.”

“You speak justly,” answered Charnyetski. “If he is alive I ought to
give orders to drag him with a horse over the square, for disregard of
discipline. He might alarm the Swedish army, but he has alarmed both
armies; besides, he was not free to touch the Swedes without command
and my order. Is this a general militia or what the devil, that every
man has a right to act on his own account?”

“He has offended, I agree; I will punish him myself, if only the Lord
will bring him back.”

“But I forgive him in remembrance of the Rudnik affair. I have many
prisoners to exchange, and more distinguished officers than Kovalski.
Do you go to the Swedes and negotiate about exchange; I will give two
or three for him if need be, for I do not wish to make your heart
bleed. Come to me for a letter to the king, and go quickly.”

Zagloba sprang with rejoicing to Kmita’s tent, and told his comrades
what had happened. Pan Andrei and Volodyovski exclaimed at once that
they too would go with him, for both were curious to see the Swedes;
besides Kmita might be very useful, since he spoke German almost as
fluently as Polish.

Preparations did not delay them long. Charnyetski, without waiting for
the return of Zagloba, sent the letter by a messenger; then they
provided a piece of white cloth fixed to a pole, took a trumpeter, sat
in a boat, and moved on.

At first they went in silence, nothing save the plash of oars was to be
heard; at last Zagloba was somewhat alarmed and said,—

“Lot the trumpeter announce us immediately, for those scoundrels are
ready to fire in spite of the white flag.”

“What do you say?” answered Volodyovski; “even barbarians respect
envoys, and this is a civilized people.”

“Let the trumpeter sound, I say. The first soldier who happens along
will fire, make a hole in the boat, and we shall get into the water;
the water is cold, and I have no wish to get wet through their
courtesy.”

“There, a sentry is visible!” said Kmita.

The trumpeter sounded. The boat shot forward quickly; on the other
shore a hurried movement began, and soon a mounted officer rode up,
wearing a yellow leather cap. When he had approached the edge of the
water he shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look against the
light. A few yards from the shore Kmita removed his cap in greeting;
the officer bowed to him with equal politeness.

“A letter from Pan Charnyetski to the Most Serene King of Sweden!”
cried Pan Andrei, showing the letter.

The guard standing on the shore presented arms. Pan Zagloba was
completely reassured; presently he fixed his countenance in dignity
befitting his position as an envoy, and said in Latin,—

“The past night a certain cavalier was seized on this shore; I have
come to ask for him.”

“I cannot speak Latin,” answered the officer.

“Ignoramus!” muttered Zagloba.

The officer turned then to Pan Andrei,—

“The king is in the farther end of the camp. Be pleased, gentlemen, to
stay here; I will go and announce you.” And he turned his horse.

The envoys looked around. The camp was very spacious, for it embraced
the whole triangle formed by the San and the Vistula. At the summit of
the triangle lay Panyev, at the base Tarnobjeg on one side, and
Rozvadov on the other. Apparently it was impossible to take in the
whole extent at a glance; still, as far as the eye could reach, were to
be seen trenches, embankments, earthworks, and fascines at which were
cannons and men. In the very centre of the place, in Gojytsi, were the
quarters of the king; there also the main forces of the army.

“If hunger does not drive them out of this place, we can do nothing
with them,” said Kmita. “The whole region is fortified. There is
pasture for horses.”

“But there are not fish for so many mouths,” said Zagloba. “Lutherans
do not like fasting food. Not long since they had all Poland, now they
have this wedge; let them sit here in safety, or go back to Yaroslav.”

“Very skilful men made these trenches,” added Volodyovski, looking with
the eye of a specialist on the work. “We have more swordsmen, but fewer
learned officers; and in military art we are behind others.”

“Why is that?” asked Zagloba.

“Why? It does not beseem me as a soldier who has served all his life in
the cavalry, to say this, but everywhere infantry and cannon are the
main thing; hence those campaigns and military manœuvres, marches, and
countermarches. A man in a foreign army must devour a multitude of
books and turn over a multitude of Roman authors before he becomes a
distinguished officer; but there is nothing of that with us. Cavalry
rushes into the smoke in a body, and shaves with its sabres; and if it
does not shave off in a minute, then they shave it off.”

“You speak soundly, Pan Michael; but what nation has won so many famous
victories?”

“Yes, because others in old times warred in the same way, and not
having the same impetus they were bound to lose; but now they have
become wiser, and see what they are doing.”

“Wait for the end. Place for me now the wisest Swedish or German
engineer, and against him I will put Roh, who has never turned over
books, and let us see.”

“If you could put him,” interrupted Kmita.

“True, true! I am terribly sorry for him. Pan Andrei, jabber a little
in that dog’s language of those breeches fellows, and ask what has
happened to Roh.”

“You do not know regular soldiers. Here no man will open his lips to
you without an order; they are stingy of speech.”

“I know that they are surly scoundrels. While if to our nobles, and
especially to the general militia, an envoy comes, immediately talk,
talk, they will drink gorailka with him, and will enter into political
discussion with him; and see how these fellows stand there like posts
and bulge out their eyes at us! I wish they would smother to the last
man!”

In fact, more and more foot-soldiers gathered around the envoys,
looking at them curiously. The envoys were dressed so carefully in
elegant and even rich garments, that they made an imposing appearance.
Zagloba arrested most attention, for he bore himself with almost
senatorial dignity; Volodyovski was less considered, by reason of his
stature.

Meanwhile the officer who received them first on the bank returned with
another of higher rank, and with soldiers leading horses. The superior
officer bowed to the envoys and said in Polish,—

“His Royal Grace asks you, gentlemen, to his quarters; and since they
are not very near we have brought horses.”

“Are you a Pole?” asked Zagloba.

“No, I am a Cheh,—Sadovski, in the Swedish service.”

Kmita approached him at once. “Do you know me?”

Sadovski looked at him quickly. “Of course! At Chenstohova you blew up
the largest siege gun, and Miller gave you to Kuklinovski. I greet you,
greet you heartily as a famous knight.”

“And what is going on with Kuklinovski?” asked Kmita.

“But do you not know?”

“I know that I paid him with that with which he wanted to treat me, but
I left him alive.”

“He died.”

“I thought he would freeze to death,” said Pan Andrei, waving his hand.

“Worthy Colonel,” put in Zagloba, “have you not a certain Roh
Kovalski?”

Sadovski laughed: “Of course.”

“Praise be to God and the Most Holy Lady! The lad is alive and I shall
get him. Praise be to God!”

“I do not know whether the king will be willing to yield him up,” said
Sadovski.

“But why not?”

“Because he has pleased him greatly. He recognized him at once as the
same man who had pushed after him with such vigor at Rudnik. We held
our sides listening to the narrative of the prisoner. The king asked:
‘Why did you pick me out?’ and he answered, ‘I made a vow.’ Then the
king asked again, ‘But will you do so again?’ ‘Of course!’ answered the
prisoner. The king began to laugh. ‘Put away your vow,’ said he, ‘and I
will give you your life and freedom.’ ‘Impossible!’ ‘Why?’ ‘For my
uncle would proclaim me a fool.’ ‘And are you so sure that you could
manage me in a hand-to-hand fight?’ ‘Oh, I could manage five men like
you,’ said he. Then the king asked again: ‘And do you dare to raise
your hand against majesty?’ ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘for you have a vile
faith.’ They interpreted every word to the king, and he was more and
more pleased, and continued to repeat: ‘This man has pleased me.’ Then
wishing to see whether in truth he had such strength, he gave orders to
choose twelve of the strongest men in camp and bring them to wrestle in
turn with the prisoner. But he is a muscular fellow! When I came away
he had stretched out ten one after another, and not a man of them could
rise again. We shall arrive just at the end of the amusement.”

“I recognize Roh, my blood!” said Zagloba. “We will give for him even
three famous officers!”

“You will find the king in good humor,” said Sadovski, “which is a rare
thing nowadays.”

“Oh, I believe that!” answered the little knight.

Meanwhile Sadovski turned to Kmita, and asked how he had not only freed
himself from Kuklinovski, but put an end to him. Kmita told him in
detail. Sadovski, while listening, seized his own head with amazement;
at last he pressed Kmita’s hand again, and said,—

“Believe me, I am sincerely glad; for though I serve the Swedes, every
true soldier’s heart rejoices when a real cavalier puts down a ruffian.
I must acknowledge to you that when a daring man is found among you,
one must look with a lantern through the universe to find his equal.”

“You are a courteous officer,” said Zagloba.

“And a famous soldier, we know that,” added Volodyovski.

“I learned courtesy and the soldier’s art from you,” answered Sadovski,
touching his cap.

Thus they conversed, vying with one another in courtesy, till they
reached Grojytsi, where the king’s quarters were. The whole village was
occupied by soldiers of various arms. Our envoys looked with curiosity
at the groups scattered among the fences. Some, wishing to sleep away
their hunger, were dozing around cottages, for the day was very clear
and warm; some were playing dice on drums, drinking beer; some were
hanging their clothes on the fences; others were sitting in front of
the cottages singing Scandinavian songs, rubbing with brick-dust their
breastplates and helmets, from which bright gleams went forth. In
places they were cleaning horses, or leading them out; in a word, camp
life was moving and seething under the bright sky. There were men, it
is true, who bore signs of terrible toil and hunger, but the sun
covered their leanness with gold; besides, days of rest were beginning
for those incomparable warriors, therefore they took courage at once,
and assumed a military bearing. Volodyovski admired them in spirit,
especially the infantry regiments, famous through the whole world for
endurance and bravery. Sadovski gave explanations as they passed,
saying,—

“This is the Smaland regiment of the royal guard. This is the infantry
of Delekarlia, the very best.”

“In God’s name, what little monsters are these?” cried Zagloba on a
sudden, pointing to a group of small men with olive complexions and
black hair hanging on both sides of their heads.

“Those are Laplanders, who belong to the remotest Hyperboreans.”

“Are they good in battle? It seems to me that I might take three in
each hand and strike with their heads till I was tired.”

“You could surely do so. They are useless in battle. The Swedes bring
them for camp servants, and partly as a curiosity. But they are the
most skilful of wizards; each of them has at least one devil in his
service, and some have five.”

“How do they get such friendship with evil spirits?” asked Kmita,
making the sign of the cross.

“Because they wander in night, which with them lasts half a year or
more; and you know that it is easier to hold converse with the Devil at
night.”

“But have they souls?”

“It is unknown; but I think that they are more in the nature of
animals.”

Kmita turned his horse, caught one of the Laplanders by the shoulders,
raised him up like a cat, and examined him curiously; then he put him
on his feet, and said,—

“If the king would give me one such, I would give orders to have him
dried and hung up in the church in Orsha, where, among other
curiosities, are ostrich eggs.”

“In Lubni, at the parish church, there were jaws of a whale or even of
a giant,” said Volodyovski.

“Let us go on, for something evil will fall on us here,” said Zagloba.

“Let us go,” repeated Sadovski. “To tell the truth, I ought to have had
bags put on your heads, as is the custom; but we have nothing here to
hide, and that you have looked on the trenches is all the better for
us.”

They spurred on their horses, and after a while were before the castle
at Gojytsi. In front of the gate they sprang from their saddles, and
advanced on foot; for the King was before the house.

They saw a large number of generals and very celebrated officers. Old
Wittemberg was there, Douglas, Löwenhaupt, Miller, Erickson, and many
others. All were sitting on the balcony, a little behind the king,
whose chair was pushed forward; and they looked on the amusement which
Karl Gustav was giving himself with the prisoner. Roh had just
stretched out the twelfth cavalier, and was in a coat torn by the
wrestlers, panting and sweating greatly. When he saw his uncle in
company with Kmita and Volodyovski, he thought at once that they too
were prisoners. He stared at them, opened his mouth, and advanced a
couple of steps; but Zagloba gave him a sign with his hand to stand
quietly, and the envoy stood himself with his comrades before the face
of the king.

Sadovski presented the envoys; they bowed low, as custom and etiquette
demanded, then Zagloba delivered Charnyetski’s letter.

The king took the letter, and began to read; meanwhile the Polish
envoys looked at him with curiosity, for they had never seen him
before. He was a man in the flower of his age, as dark in complexion as
though born an Italian or a Spaniard. His long hair, black as a raven’s
wing, fell behind his ears to his shoulders. In brightness and color
his eyes brought to mind Yeremi Vishnyevetski; his brows were greatly
elevated, as if he were in continual astonishment. In the place where
the brows approached, his forehead was raised in a large protuberance,
which made him resemble a lion; a deep wrinkle above his nose, which
did not leave him even when he was laughing, gave his face a
threatening and wrathful expression. His lower lip protruded like that
of Yan Kazimir, but his face was heavier and his chin larger; he wore
mustaches in the form of cords, brushed out somewhat at the ends. In
general, his face indicated an uncommon man, one of those who when they
walk over the earth press blood out of it. There was in him grandeur,
the pride of a monarch, the strength of a lion, and the quickness of
genius; but though a kindly smile never left his mouth, there was
lacking that kindness of heart which illuminates a face from within
with a mild light, as a lamp placed in the middle of an alabaster urn
lights it. He sat in the arm-chair, with crossed legs, the powerful
calves of which were indicated clearly from under the black stockings,
and blinking as was his wont, he read with a smile the letter from
Charnyetski. Raising his lids, he looked at Pan Michael, and said,—

“I knew you at once; you slew Kanneberg.”

All eyes were turned immediately on Volodyovski, who, moving his
mustaches, bowed and answered,—

“At the service of your Royal Grace.”

“What is your office?” asked the king.

“Colonel of the Lauda squadron.”

“Where did you serve before?”

“With the voevoda of Vilna.”

“And did you leave him with the others? You betrayed him and me.”

“I was bound to my own king, not to your Royal Grace.”

The king said nothing; all foreheads were frowning, eyes began to bore
into Pan Michael; but he stood calmly, merely moving his mustaches time
after time.

All at once the king said,—

“It is pleasant for me to know such a famous cavalier. Kanneberg passed
among us as incomparable in hand-to-hand conflict. You must be the
first sabre in the kingdom?”

“_In universo_ (In the universe)!” said Zagloba.

“Not the last,” answered Volodyovski.

“I greet you, gentlemen, heartily. For Pan Charnyetski I have a real
esteem as for a great soldier, though he broke his word to me, for he
ought to be sitting quietly till now in Syevej.”

“Your Royal Grace,” said Kmita, “Pan Charnyetski was not the first to
break his word, but General Miller, who seized Wolf’s regiment of royal
infantry.”

Miller advanced a step, looked in the face of Kmita, and began to
whisper something to the king, who, blinking all the time, listened
attentively; looking at Pan Andrei, he said at last,—

“I see that Pan Charnyetski has sent me chosen cavaliers. I know from
of old that there is no lack of daring men among you; but there is a
lack of faith in keeping promises and oaths.”

“Holy are the words of your Royal Grace,” answered Zagloba.

“How do you understand that?”

“If it were not for this vice of our people, your Royal Grace would not
be here.”

The king was silent awhile; the generals again frowned at the boldness
of the envoys.

“Yan Kazimir himself freed you from the oath,” said Karl, “for he left
you and took refuge abroad.”

“From the oath we can be freed only by the Vicar of Christ, who resides
in Rome; and he has not freed us.”

“A truce to that!” said the king. “I have acquired the kingdom by
this,” here he struck his sword, “and by this I will hold it. I do not
need your suffrages nor your oaths. You want war, you will have it. I
think that Pan Charnyetski remembers Golembo yet.”

“He forgot it on the road from Yaroslav,” answered Zagloba.

The king, instead of being angry, smiled: “I’ll remind him of it.”

“God rules the world.”

“Tell him to visit me; I shall be glad to receive him. But he must
hurry, for as soon as my horses are in condition I shall march
farther.”

“Then we shall receive your Royal Grace,” said Zagloba, bowing and
placing his hand slightly on his sabre.

“I see,” said the king, “that Pan Charnyetski has sent in the embassy
not only the best sabres, but the best mouth. In a moment you parry
every thrust. It is lucky that the war is not of words, for I should
find an opponent worthy of my power. But I will come to the question.
Pan Charnyetski asks me to liberate this prisoner, offering two
officers of distinction in return. I do not set such a low price on my
soldiers as you think, and I have no wish to redeem them too cheaply;
that would be against my own and their ambition, but since I can refuse
Pan Charnyetski nothing, I will make him a present of this cavalier.”

“Gracious Lord,” answered Zagloba, “Pan Charnyetski did not wish to
show contempt for Swedish officers, but compassion for me; for this is
my sister’s son, and I, at the service of your Royal Grace, am Pan
Charnyetski’s adviser.”

“In truth,” said the king, “I ought not to let the prisoner go, for he
has made a vow against me, unless he will give up his vow in view of
this favor.”

Here he turned to Roh, who was standing in front of the porch, and
beckoned: “But come nearer, you strong fellow!”

Roh approached a couple of steps, and stood erect.

“Sadovski,” said the king, “ask him if he will let me go in case I free
him.”

Sadovski repeated the king’s question.

“Impossible!” cried Roh.

The king understood without an interpreter, and began to clap his hands
and blink.

“Well, well! How can I set such a man free? He has twisted the necks of
twelve horsemen, and promises me as the thirteenth. Good, good! the
cavalier has pleased me. Is he Pan Charnyetski’s adviser too? If he is,
I will let him go all the more quickly.”

“Keep your mouth shut!” muttered Zagloba to Roh.

“A truce to amusement!” said the king, suddenly. “Take him, and have
still one more proof of my clemency. I can forgive, as the lord of this
kingdom, since such is my will and favor; but I will not enter into
terms with rebels.”

Here the king frowned, and the smile left his face: “Whoso raises his
hand against me is a rebel, for I am his lawful king. Only from
kindness to you have I not punished hitherto as was proper. I have been
waiting for you to come to your minds; but the hour will strike when
kindness will be exhausted and the day of punishment will rise. Through
your self-will and instability the country is flaming with fire;
through your disloyalty blood is flowing. But I tell you the last days
are passing; you do not wish to hear admonitions, you do not wish to
obey laws, you will obey the sword and the gallows!”

Lightnings flashed in Karl’s eyes. Zagloba looked on him awhile with
amazement, unable to understand whence that storm had come after fair
weather; finally he too began to grow angry, therefore he bowed and
said only,—

“We thank your Royal Grace.”

Then he went off, and after him Kmita, Volodyovski, and Roh Kovalski.

“Gracious, gracious!” said Zagloba, “and before you can look around he
bellows in your ear like a bear. Beautiful end to an embassy! Others
give honor with a cup at parting, but he with the gallows! Let him hang
dogs, not nobles! O my God! how grievously we have sinned against our
king, who was a father, is a father, and will be a father, for there is
a Yagyellon heart in him. And such a king traitors deserted, and went
to make friendship with scarecrows from beyond the sea. We are served
rightly, for we were not worthy of anything better. Gibbets! gibbets!
He is fenced in, and we have squeezed him like curds in a bag, so that
whey is coming out, and still he threatens with sword and gibbet. Wait
awhile! The Cossack caught a Tartar, and the Tartar has him by the
head. It will be closer for you yet.—Roh, I wanted to give you a slap
on the face or fifty blows on a carpet, but I forgive you now since you
acted so like a cavalier and promised to hunt him still farther. Let me
kiss you, for I am delighted with you.”

“Uncle is still glad!” said Roh.

“The gibbet and the sword! And he told that to my eyes,” said Zagloba
again, after a while. “You have protection! The wolf protects in the
same fashion a sheep for his own eating. And when does he say that?
Now, when there is goose skin on his own back. Let him take his
Laplanders for counsellors, and with them seek Satan’s aid. But the
Most Holy Lady will help us, as she did Pan Bobola in Sandomir when
powder threw him and his horse across the Vistula, and he was not hurt.
He looked around to see where he was, and arrived in time to dine with
the priest. With such help we will pull them all by the necks like
lobsters out of a wicker trap.”

CHAPTER XXXV.

Almost twenty days passed. The king remained continually at the
junction of the rivers, and sent couriers to fortresses and commands in
every direction toward Cracow and Warsaw, with orders for all to hasten
to him with assistance. They sent him also provisions by the Vistula in
as great quantities as possible, but insufficient. After ten days the
Swedes began to eat horse-flesh; despair seized the king and the
generals at thought of what would happen when the cavalry should lose
their horses, and when there would be no beasts to draw cannon. From
every side too there came unpleasant news. The whole country was
blazing with war, as if some one had poured pitch over it and set fire.
Inferior commands and garrisons could not hasten to give aid, for they
were not able to leave the towns and villages. Lithuania, held hitherto
by the iron hand of Pontus de la Gardie, rose as one man. Great Poland,
which had yielded first of all, was the first to throw off the yoke,
and shone before the whole Commonwealth as an example of endurance,
resolve, and enthusiasm. Parties of nobles and peasants rushed not only
on the garrisons in villages, but even attacked towns. In vain did the
Swedes take terrible vengeance on the country, in vain did they cut off
the hands of prisoners, in vain did they send up villages in smoke, cut
settlements to pieces, raise gibbets, bring instruments of torture from
Germany to torture insurgents. Whoso had to suffer, suffered; whoso had
to die, died; but if he was a noble, he died with a sabre; if a
peasant, with a scythe in his hand. And Swedish blood was flowing
throughout all Great Poland; the peasants were living in the forests,
even women rushed to arms; punishments merely roused vengeance and
increased rage. Kulesha, Jegotski, and the voevoda of Podlyasye moved
through the country like flames, and besides their parties all the
pine-woods were filled with other parties. The fields lay untilled,
fierce hunger increased in the land; but it twisted most the entrails
of the Swedes, for they were confined in towns behind closed gates, and
could not go to the open country. At last breath was failing in their
bosoms.

In Mazovia the condition was the same. There the Barkshoe people
dwelling in forest gloom came out of their wildernesses, blocked the
roads, seized provisions and couriers. In Podlyasye a numerous small
nobility marched in thousands either to Sapyeha or to Lithuania.
Lyubelsk was in the hands of the confederates. From the distant Russias
came Tartars, and with them the Cossacks constrained to obedience.

Therefore all were certain that if not in a week in a month, if not in
a month in two, that river fork in which Karl Gustav had halted with
the main army of the Swedes would be turned into one great tomb to the
glory of the nation; a great lesson for those who would attack the
Commonwealth.

The end of the war was foreseen already; there were some who said that
one way of salvation alone remained to Karl,—to ransom himself and give
Swedish Livland to the Commonwealth.

But suddenly the fortune of Karl and the Swedes was bettered.
Marienburg, besieged hitherto in vain, surrendered, March 20, to
Steinbock. His powerful and valiant army had then no occupation, and
could hasten to the rescue of the king.

From another direction the Markgraf of Baden, having finished levies,
was marching also to the river fork with ready forces, and soldiers yet
unwearied.

Both pushed forward, breaking up the smaller bands of insurgents,
destroying, burning, slaying. Along the road they gathered in Swedish
garrisons, took the smaller commands, and increased in power, as a
river increases the more it takes streams to its bosom.

Tidings of the fall of Marienburg, of the army of Steinbock, and the
march of the Markgraf of Baden came very quickly to the fork of the
river, and grieved Polish hearts. Steinbock was still far away; but the
markgraf, advancing by forced marches, might soon come up and change
the whole position at Sandomir.

The Polish leaders then held a council in which Charnyetski, Sapyeha,
Michael Radzivill, Vitovski, and Lyubomirski, who had grown tired of
being on the Vistula, took part. At this council it was decided that
Sapyeha with the Lithuanian army was to remain to watch Karl, and
prevent his escape, Charnyetski was to move against the Markgraf of
Baden and meet him as quickly as possible; if God gave him victory, he
would return to besiege Karl Gustav.

Corresponding orders were given at once. Next morning the trumpets
sounded to horse so quietly that they were barely heard; Charnyetski
wished to depart unknown to the Swedes. At his recent camp-ground a
number of unoccupied parties of nobles and peasants took position at
once. They kindled fires and made an uproar, so that the enemy might
think that no one had left the place; but Charnyetski’s squadrons moved
out one after another. First marched the Lauda squadron, which by right
should have remained with Sapyeha; but since Charnyetski had fallen
greatly in love with this squadron, the hetman was loath to take it
from him. After the Lauda went the Vansovich squadron, chosen men led
by an old soldier half of whose life had been passed in shedding blood;
then followed the squadron of Prince Dymitri Vishnyevetski, under the
same Shandarovski who at Rudnik had covered himself with immeasurable
glory; then two regiments of Vitovski’s dragoons, two regiments of the
starosta of Yavorov; the famed Stapkovski led one; then Charnyetski’s
own regiment, the king’s regiment under Polyanovski, and Lyubomirski’s
whole force. No infantry was taken, because of haste; nor wagons, for
the army went on horseback.

All were drawn up together at Zavada in good strength and great
willingness. Then Charnyetski himself went out in front, and after he
had arranged them for the march, he withdrew his horse somewhat and let
them pass so as to review well the whole force. The horse under him
sniffed, threw up his head and nodded, as if wishing to greet the
passing regiments; and the heart swelled in the castellan himself. A
beautiful view was before him. As far as the eye reached a river of
horses, a river of stern faces of soldiers, welling up and down with
the movement of the horses; above them still a third river of sabres
and lances, glittering and gleaming in the morning sun. A tremendous
power went forth from them, and Charnyetski felt the power in himself;
for that was not some kind of collection of volunteers, but men forged
on the anvil of battle, trained, exercised, and in conflict so
“venomous” that no cavalry on earth of equal numbers could withstand
them. Therefore Charnyetski felt with certainty, without doubt, that he
would bear asunder with sabres and hoofs the army of the Markgraf of
Baden; and that victory, felt in advance, made his face so radiant that
it gleamed on the regiments.

“With God to victory!” cried he at last.

“With God! We will conquer!” answered mighty voices.

And that shout flew through all the squadrons like deep thunder through
clouds. Charnyetski spurred his horse to come up with the Lauda
squadron, marching in the van.

The army moved forward.

They advanced not like men, but like a flock of ravening birds which
having wind of a battle from afar, fly to outstrip the tempest. Never,
even among Tartars in the steppes, had any man heard of such a march.
The soldiers slept in the saddles; they ate and drank without
dismounting; they fed the horses from their hands. Rivers, forests,
villages, were left behind them. Scarcely had peasants hurried out from
their cottages to look at the army when the army had vanished behind
clouds of dust in the distance. They marched day and night, resting
only just enough to escape killing the horses.

At Kozyenitsi they came upon eight Swedish squadrons under Torneskiold.
The Lauda men, marching in the van, first saw the enemy, and without
even drawing breath sprang at them straightway and into the fire. Next
advanced Shandarovski, then Vansovich, and then Stapkovski.

The Swedes, thinking that they had to deal with some mere common
parties, met them in the open field, and two hours later there was not
a living man left to go to the markgraf and tell him that Charnyetski
was coming. Those eight squadrons were simply swept asunder on sabres,
without leaving a witness of defeat. Then the Poles moved straight on
to Magnushev, for spies informed them that the markgraf was at Varka
with his whole army.

Volodyovski was sent in the night with a party to learn how the army
was disposed, and what its power was.

Zagloba complained greatly of that expedition, for even the famed
Vishnyevetski had never made such marches as this; therefore the old
man complained, but he chose to go with Pan Michael rather than remain
with the army.

“It was a golden time at Sandomir,” said he, stretching himself in the
saddle; “a man ate, drank, and looked at the besieged Swedes in the
distance; bat now there is not time even to put a canteen to your
mouth. I know the military arts of the ancients, of the great Pompey
and Cæsar; but Charnyetski has invented a new style. It is contrary to
every rule to shake the stomach so many days and nights. The
imagination begins to rebel in me from hunger, and it seems to me
continually that the stars are buckwheat pudding and the moon cheese.
To the dogs with such warfare! As God is dear to me, I want to gnaw my
own horses’ ears off from hunger.”

“To-morrow, God grant, we shall rest after finishing the Swedes.”

“I would rather have the Swedes than this tediousness! O Lord! O Lord!
when wilt Thou give peace to this Commonwealth, and to Zagloba a warm
place at the stove and heated beer, even without cream? Batter along,
old man, on your nag, batter along, till you batter your body to death.
Has any one there snuff? Maybe I could sneeze out this sleepiness
through my nostrils. The moon is shining through my mouth, looking into
my stomach, but I cannot tell what the moon is looking for there; it
will find nothing. I repeat, to the dogs with such warfare!”

“If Uncle thinks that the moon is cheese, then eat it, Uncle,” said Roh
Kovalski.

“If I should eat you I might say that I had eaten beef; but I am afraid
that after such a roast I should lose the rest of my wit.”

“If I am an ox and Uncle is my uncle, then what is Uncle?”

“But, you fool, do you think that Althea gave birth to a firebrand
because she sat by the stove?”

“How does that touch me?”

“In this way. If you are an ox, then ask about your father first, not
about your uncle: for a bull carried off Europa, but her brother, who
was uncle to her children, was a man for all that. Do you understand?”

“To tell the truth, I do not; but as to eating I could eat something
myself.”

“Eat the devil and let me sleep! What is it, Pan Michael? Why have we
halted?”

“Varka is in sight,” answered Volodyovski. “See, the church tower is
gleaming in the moonlight.”

“But have we passed Magnushev?”

“Magnushev is behind on the right. It is a wonder to me that there is
no Swedish party on this side of the river. Let us go to those thickets
and stop; perhaps God may send us some informant.”

Pan Michael led his detachment to the thicket, and disposed it about a
hundred yards from the road on each side, ordering the men to remain
silent, and hold the bridles closely so the horses might not neigh.

“Wait,” said he. “Let us hear what is being done on the other side of
the river, and perhaps we may see something.”

They stood there waiting; but for a long time nothing was to be heard.
The wearied soldiers began to nod in the saddles. Zagloba dropped on
the horse’s neck and fell asleep; even the horses were slumbering. An
hour passed. The accurate ear of Volodyovski heard something like the
tread of a horse on a firm road.

“Hold! silence!” said he to the soldiers.

He pushed out himself to the edge of the thicket, and looked along the
road. The road was gleaming in the moonlight like a silver ribbon;
there was nothing visible on it, still the sound of horses came nearer.

“They are coming surely!” said Volodyovski.

All held their horses more closely, each one restraining his breath.
Meanwhile on the road appeared a Swedish party of thirty horsemen. They
rode slowly and carelessly enough, not in line, but in a straggling
row. Some of the soldiers were talking, others were singing in a low
voice; for the night, warm as in May, acted on the ardent souls of the
soldiers. Without suspicion they passed near Pan Michael, who was
standing so hard by the edge of the thicket that he could catch the
odor of horses and the smoke of pipes which the soldiers had lighted.

At last they vanished at the turn of the road. Volodyovski waited till
the tramp had died in the distance; then only did he go to his men and
say to Pan Yan and Pan Stanislav,—

“Let us drive them now, like geese, to the camp of the castellan. Not a
man must escape, lest he give warning.”

“If Charnyetski does not let us eat then and sleep,” said Zagloba, “I
will resign his service and return to Sapyo. With Sapyo, when there is
a battle, there is a battle; but when there is a respite, there is a
feast. If you had four lips, he would give each one of them enough to
do. He is the leader for me! And in truth tell me by what devil are we
not serving with Sapyo, since this regiment belongs to him by right?”

“Father, do not blaspheme against the greatest warrior in the
Commonwealth,” said Pan Yan.

“It is not I that blaspheme, but my entrails, on which hunger is
playing, as on a fiddle—”

“The Swedes will dance to the music,” interrupted Volodyovski. “Now,
gentlemen, let us advance quickly! I should like to come up with them
exactly at that inn in the forest which we passed in coming hither.”

And he led on the squadron quickly, but not too quickly. They rode into
a dense forest in which darkness enclosed them. The inn was less than
two miles distant. When Volodyovski had drawn near, he went again at a
walk, so as not to alarm the Swedes too soon. When not more than a
cannon-shot away, the noise of men was heard.

“They are there and making an uproar!” said Pan Michael.

The Swedes had, in fact, stopped at the inn, looking for some living
person to give information. But the place was empty. Some of the
soldiers were shaking up the main building; others were looking in the
cow-house, in the shed, or raising the thatch on the roof. One half of
the men remained on the square holding the horses of those who were
searching.

Pan Michael’s division approached within a hundred yards, and began to
surround the inn with a Tartar crescent. Those of the Swedes standing
in front heard perfectly, and at last saw men and horses; since,
however, it was dark in the forest they could not see what kind of
troops were coming; but they were not alarmed in the least, not
admitting that others than Swedes could come from that point. At last
the movement of the crescent astonished and disturbed them. They called
at once to those who were in the buildings.

Suddenly a shout of “Allah!” was heard, and the sound of shots, in one
moment dark crowds of soldiers appeared as if they had grown out of the
earth. Now came confusion, a flash of sabres, oaths, smothered shouts;
but the whole affair did not last longer than the time needed to say
the Lord’s Prayer twice.

There remained on the ground before the inn five bodies of men and
horses; Volodyovski moved on, taking with him twenty-five prisoners.

They advanced at a gallop, urging the Swedish horses with the sides of
their sabres, and arrived at Magnushev at daybreak. In Charnyetski’s
camp no one was sleeping; all were ready. The castellan himself came
out leaning on his staff, thin and pale from watching.

“How is it?” asked he of Pan Michael. “Have you many informants?”

“Twenty-five prisoners.”

“Did many escape?”

“All are taken.”

“Only send you, soldier, even to hell! Well done! Take them at once to
the torture, I will examine them.”

Then the castellan turned, and when departing said,—

“But be in readiness, for perhaps we may move on the enemy without
delay.”

“How is that?” asked Zagloba.

“Be quiet!” said Volodyovski.

The prisoners, without being burned, told in a moment what they knew of
the forces of the markgraf,—how many cannons he had, what infantry and
cavalry. Charnyetski grew somewhat thoughtful; for he learned that it
was really a newly levied army, but formed of the oldest soldiers, who
had taken part in God knows how many wars. There were also many Germans
among them, and a considerable division of French; the whole force
exceeded that of the Poles by several hundred. But it appeared from the
statements of the prisoners that the markgraf did not even admit that
Charnyetski was near, and believed that the Poles were besieging Karl
Gustav with all their forces at Sandomir.

The castellan had barely heard this when he sprang up and cried to his
attendant: “Vitovski, give command to sound the trumpet to horse!”

Half an hour later the army moved and marched in the fresh spring
morning through forests and fields covered with dew. At last Varka—or
rather its ruins, for the place had been burned almost to the ground
six years before—appeared on the horizon.

Charnyetski’s troops were marching over an open flat; therefore they
could not be concealed from the eyes of the Swedes. In fact they were
seen; but the markgraf thought that they were various “parties” which
had combined in a body with the intent of alarming the camp.

Only when squadron after squadron, advancing at a trot, appeared from
beyond the forest, did a feverish activity rise in the Swedish camp.
Charnyetski’s men saw smaller divisions of horsemen and single officers
hurrying between the regiments. The bright-colored Swedish infantry
began to pour into the middle of the plain; the regiments formed one
after another before the eyes of the Poles and were numerous,
resembling a flock of many-colored birds. Over their heads were raised
toward the sun quadrangles of strong spears with which the infantry
shielded themselves against attacks of cavalry. Finally, were seen
crowds of Swedish armored cavalry advancing at a trot along the wings;
the artillery was drawn up and brought to the front in haste. All the
preparations, all the movements were as visible as something on the
palm of the hand, for the sun had risen clearly, splendidly, and
lighted up the whole country.

The Pilitsa separated the two armies.

On the Swedish bank trumpets and kettle-drums were heard, and the
shouts of soldiers coming with all speed into line. Charnyetski ordered
also to sound the crooked trumpets, and advanced with his squadrons
toward the river.

Then he rushed with all the breath of his horse to the Vansovich
squadron, which was nearest the Pilitsa.

“Old soldier!” cried he to Vansovich, “advance for me to the bridge,
there dismount and to muskets! Let all their force be turned on you!
Lead on!”

Vansovich merely flushed a little from desire, and waved his baton. The
men shouted and shot after him like a cloud of dust driven by wind.

When they came within three hundred yards of the bridge, they slackened
the speed of their horses; then two thirds of them sprang from the
saddles and advanced on a run to the bridge.

But the Swedes came from the other side; and soon muskets began to
play, at first slowly, then every moment more briskly, as if a thousand
flails were beating irregularly on a barn-floor. Smoke stretched over
the river. Shouts of encouragement were thundering from one and the
other command. The minds of both armies were bent to the bridge, which
was wooden, narrow, difficult to take, but easy to defend. Still over
this bridge alone was it possible to cross to the Swedes.

A quarter of an hour later Charnyetski pushed forward Lyubomirski’s
dragoons to the aid of Vansovich.

But the Swedes now attacked the opposite front with artillery. They
drew up new pieces one after another, and bombs began to fly with a
howl over the heads of Vansovich’s men and the dragoons, to fall in the
meadow and dig into the earth, scattering mud and turf on those
fighting.

The markgraf, standing near the forest in the rear of the army, watched
the battle through a field-glass. From time to time he removed the
glass from his eyes, looked at his staff, shrugged his shoulders and
said with astonishment: “They have gone mad; they want absolutely to
force the bridge. A few guns and two or three regiments might defend it
against a whole army.”

Vansovich advanced still more stubbornly with his men; hence the
defence grew still more resolute. The bridge became the central point
of the battle, toward which the whole Swedish line was approaching and
concentrating. An hour later the entire Swedish order of battle was
changed, and they stood with flank to their former position. The bridge
was simply covered with a rain of fire and iron. Vansovich’s men were
falling thickly; meanwhile orders came more and more urgent to advance
absolutely.

“Charnyetski is murdering those men!” cried Lyubomirski on a sudden.

Vitovski, as an experienced soldier, saw that evil was happening, and
his whole body quivered with impatience; at last he could endure no
longer. Spurring his horse till the beast groaned piteously, he rushed
to Charnyetski, who during all this time, it was unknown why, was
pushing men toward the river.

“Your grace,” cried Vitovski, “blood is flowing for nothing; we cannot
carry that bridge!”

“I do not want to carry it!” answered Charnyetski.

“Then what does your grace want? What must we do?”

“To the river with the squadrons! to the river! And you to your place!”

Here Charnyetski’s eyes flashed such lightnings that Vitovski withdrew
without saying a word.

Meanwhile the squadrons had come within twenty paces of the bank, and
stood in a long line parallel with the bed of the river. None of the
officers or the soldiers had the slightest suspicion of what they were
doing.

In a flash Charnyetski appeared like a thunderbolt before the front of
the squadrons. There was fire in his face, lightning in his eyes. A
sharp wind had raised the burka on his shoulders so that it was like
strong wings: his horse sprang and reared, casting fire from his
nostrils. The castellan dropped his sword on its pendant, took the cap
from his head, and with hair erect shouted to his division,—

“Gentlemen! the enemy defends himself with this water, and jeers at us!
He has sailed through the sea to crush our fatherland, and he thinks
that we in defence of it cannot swim through this river!”

Here he hurled his cap to the earth, and seizing his sabre pointed with
it to the swollen waters. Enthusiasm bore him away, for he stood in the
saddle and shouted more mightily still,—

“To whom God, faith, fatherland, are all, follow me!”

And pressing the horse with the spurs so that the steed sprang as it
were into space, he rushed into the river. The wave plashed around him;
man and horse were hidden under water, but they rose in the twinkle of
an eye.

“After my master!” cried Mihalko, the same who had covered himself with
glory at Rudnik; and he sprang into the water.

“After me!” shouted Volodyovski, with a shrill but thin voice; and he
sprang in before he had finished shouting.

“O Jesus! O Mary!” bellowed Zagloba, raising his horse for the leap.

With that an avalanche of men and horses dashed into the river, so that
it struck both banks with wild impetus. After the Lauda squadron went
Vishnyevetski’s, then Vitovski’s, then Stapkovski’s, after that all the
others. Such a frenzy seized the men that the squadrons crowded one
another in emulation; the shouts of command were mingled with the roar
of the soldiers; the river overflowed the banks and foamed itself into
milk in a moment. The current bore the regiments down somewhat; but the
horses, pricked with spurs, swam like a countless herd of dolphins,
snorting and groaning. They filled the river to such a degree that the
mass of heads of horses and riders formed as it were a bridge on which
a man might have passed with dry foot to the other bank.

Charnyetski swam over first; but before the water had dropped from him
the Lauda squadron had followed him to land; then he waved his baton,
and cried to Volodyovski,—

“On a gallop! Strike!”

And to the Vishnyevetski squadron under Shandarovski,—

“With them!”

And so he sent the squadrons one after another, till he had sent all.
He stood at the head of the last himself, and shouting, “In the name of
God! with luck!” followed the others.

Two regiments of Swedish cavalry posted in reserve saw what was
happening; but such amazement had seized the colonels that before they
could move from their tracks the Lauda men, urging their horses to the
highest speed, and sweeping with irresistible force, struck the first
regiment, scattered that, as a whirlwind scatters leaves, hurled it
against the second, brought that to disorder; then Shandarovski came
up, and a terrible slaughter began, but of short duration; after a
while the Swedish ranks were broken, and a disordered throng plunged
forward toward the main army.

Charnyetski’s squadron pursued them with a fearful outcry, slashing,
thrusting, strewing the field with corpses.

At last it was clear why Charnyetski had commanded Vansovich to carry
the bridge, though he had no thought of crossing it. The chief
attention of the whole army had been concentrated on that point;
therefore no one defended, or had time to defend, the river itself.
Besides nearly all the artillery and the entire front of the Swedish
army was turned toward the bridge; and now when three thousand cavalry
were rushing with all impetus against the flank of that army, it was
needful to change the order of battle, to form a new front, to defend
themselves even well or ill against the shock. Now rose a terrible
haste and confusion; infantry and cavalry regiments turned with all
speed to face the enemy, straining themselves in their hurry, knocking
one against another, not understanding commands in the uproar, acting
independently. In vain did the officers make superhuman efforts; in
vain did the markgraf move straightway the regiments of cavalry posted
at the forest; before they came to any kind of order, before the
infantry could put the butt ends of their lances in the ground to hold
the points to the enemy, the Lauda squadron fell, like the spirit of
death, into the very midst of their ranks; after it a second, a third,
a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth squadron. Then began the day of
judgment! The smoke of musketry fire covered, as if with a cloud, the
whole scene of conflict; and in that cloud screams, seething, unearthly
voices of despair, shouts of triumph, the sharp clang of steel, as if
in an infernal forge, the rattling of muskets; at times a flag shone
and fell in the smoke; then the gilded point of a regimental banner,
and again you saw nothing; but a roar was heard more and more terrible,
as if the earth had broken on a sudden under the river, and its waters
were tumbling down into fathomless abysses.

Now on the flank other sounds were heard. This was Vansovich, who had
crossed the bridge and was marching on the new flank of the enemy.
After this the battle did not last long.

From out that cloud large groups of men began to push, and run toward
the forest in disorder, wild, without caps, without helmets, without
armor. Soon after them burst out a whole flood of people in the most
dreadful disorder. Artillery, infantry, cavalry mingled together fled