With Fire and Sword Page 14

  Helena was startled. “Then you are going to the Saitch?”

  “The prince sends me with letters. But have no fear; the person of an envoy is sacred, even among pagans. I should send you and the princess immediately to Lubni, but the roads are fearful. Even on horseback it is hard to get along.”

  “Will you stay long in Rozlogi?”

  “I leave this evening for Chigirin. The sooner I go the sooner I shall return. Besides, it is the prince’s service; neither my time nor will is at my disposal.”

  “Will you come to dinner, if you have had enough of billing and cooing?” said the princess, coming in. “Ho! ho! the young woman’s cheeks are red; ‘tis evident you have not been idle, sir! Well, I’m not surprised at you.”

  Saying this, she stroked Helena affectionately on the shoulder, and they went to dinner. The princess was in perfectly good humor. She had given up Bogun long ago, and all was arranged now, owing to the liberality of the lieutenant, so that she could look on Rozlogi, “with its pine woods, forests, boundaries, and inhabitants,” as belonging to her and her sons,—no small property, indeed.

  The lieutenant asked for the princes,—whether they would return soon.

  “I expect them every day. They were angry at first with you, but afterward, when they scrutinized your acts, they conceived a great affection for you as their future relative; for in truth it is difficult in these mild times to find a man of such daring.”

  After dinner the lieutenant and Helena went to the cherry orchard, which came up to the ditch beyond the square. The orchard was covered with early white blossoms as if with snow; beyond the orchard was a dark oak grove in which a cuckoo was heard.

  “That is a happy augury for us,” said Skshetuski, “but we must make the inquiry.” And turning to the oak grove, he asked: “Good cuckoo, how many years shall I live in marriage with this lady?”

  The cuckoo began to call, and counted fifty and more.

  “God grant it!”

  “The cuckoo always tells the truth,” remarked Helena.

  “If that’s the case, I’ll ask another question,” said the enamoured lieutenant.

  “No, it is not necessary.”

  In converse and merriment like this the day passed as a dream. In the evening came the moment of tender and long parting, and the lieutenant set out for Chigirin.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  In Chigirin, Skshetuski found the old man Zatsvilikhovski in great excitement and fever. He looked impatiently at the prince’s envoy, for tidings more and more terrible kept coming from the Saitch. There was no doubt that Hmelnitski was preparing to demand with armed hand justice for himself and the ancient rights of the Cossacks. Zatsvilikhovski had news that he had been with the Khan in the Crimea to beg Tartar aid, with which he was expected every day in the Saitch. Then there would be a general campaign from the lower country against the Commonwealth, which with Tartar assistance might be destructive. The storm drew nearer and nearer, more definite and more terrible. It was no longer vague undefined alarm that swept over the Ukraine, but clear certainty of slaughter and war. The Grand Hetman, who at first had made light of the whole affair, was pushing forward with his troops to Cherkasi. The advance guard of the royal armies was advancing mainly to prevent desertion; for the Cossacks of the towns, and the mob had begun to flee to the Saitch in masses. The nobility assembled in the towns. It was said that the general militia were to be called out in the southern provinces. Some, not waiting for the call, sent their wives and children to castles, and assembled in person at Cherkasi. The ill-fated Ukraine was divided into two parties,—one of these hastened to the Saitch, the other to the royal camp; one declared for the existing order of affairs, the other for wild freedom; one desired to keep possession of that which was the fruit of ages of labor, the other desired to deprive these possessors of that property. Both were to imbrue fraternal hands in the blood of each other. The terrible dispute, before it found religious rallying-cries which were completely foreign to the lower country, was breaking out as a social war.

  But though black clouds were gathering on the heaven of the Ukraine, though a dark and ominous night was descending from these clouds, though within them it rumbled and roared and thunder-claps rolled from horizon to horizon, people still could not tell to what degree the storm would burst forth. Perhaps even Hmelnitski himself could not,—Hmelnitski, who had just sent letters to Pan Pototski, to the Cossack commissioner, and to the royal standard-bearer, full of accusation and complaints, and at the same time of assurances of loyalty to Vladislav IV. and the Commonwealth. Did he wish to win time, or did he suppose that some agreement might yet end the dispute? On this there was a variety of opinions. There were only two men who did not deceive themselves for a single moment. These men were Zatsvilikhovski and Barabash.

  The old colonel had also received a letter from Hmelnitski. The letter was sarcastic, threatening, and full of abuse. Hmelnitski wrote:—

  “We shall begin, with the whole Zaporojian army, to beg most fervently and to ask for that charter of rights which you secreted. And because you secreted it for your own personal profit and advantage, the whole Zaporojian army creates you a colonel over sheep or swine, but not over men. I beg pardon if in any way I failed to please you in my poor house in Chigirin on the feast-day of Saint Nicholas, and that I went off to the Zaporojie without your knowledge or permission.”

  “Do you see,” said Barabash to Zatsvilikhovski and Pan Yan, “how he ridicules me? Yet it was I who taught him war, and was in truth a father to him.”

  “He says, then, that the whole Zaporojian army will demand their rights,” said Zatsvilikhovski. “That is simply a civil war, of all wars the most terrible.”

  “I see that I must hasten,” said Skshetuski. “Give me the letters to those men with whom I am to come in contact.”

  “You have one to the koshevoi ataman?”

  “I have, from the prince himself.”

  “I will give you a letter to one of the kuren atamans. Barabash has a relative there,—Barabash also. From these you will learn everything. Who knows, though, but it is too late for such an expedition? Does the prince wish to hear what is really to be heard there? The answer is brief: ‘Evil!’ And he wants to know what to do? Short advice: ‘Collect as many troops as possible and join the hetmans.’”

  “Despatch a messenger, then, to the prince with the answer and the advice,” said Skshetuski. “I must go; for I am on a mission, and I cannot alter the decision of the prince.”

  “Are you aware that this is a terribly dangerous expedition?” asked Zatsvilikhovski. “Even here the people are so excited that it is difficult for them to keep still. Were it not for the nearness of the army of the crown, the mob would rush upon us. But there you are going into the dragon’s mouth.”

  “Jonah was in the whale’s belly, not his mouth, and with God’s aid he came out in safety.”

  “Go, then! I applaud your courage. You can go to Kudák in safety, and there you will see what is to be done further. Grodzitski is an old soldier; he will give you the best of advice. And I will go to the prince without fail. If I have to fight in my old age, I would rather fight under him than any one else. Meanwhile I will get boats for you, and guides who will take you to Kudák.”

  Skshetuski slipped out, and went straight to his quarters on the square, in the prince’s house, to make his final preparations. In spite of the dangers of the journey mentioned by Zatsvilikhovski, the lieutenant thought of it not without a certain satisfaction. He was going to behold the Dnieper in its whole length, almost to the lower country and the Cataracts; and for the warrior of that time it was a sort of enchanted and mysterious land, to which every adventurous spirit was drawn. Many a man had passed his whole life in the Ukraine, and still was unable to say that he had seen the Saitch,—unless he wished to join the Brotherhood, and there were fewer volunteers among the nobility than form
erly. The times of Samek Zborovski had passed never to return. The break between the Saitch and the Commonwealth which began in the time of Nalivaika and Pavlyuk had not lessened, but, on the contrary, had increased continually; and the concourse of people of family, not only Polish, but Russian, differing from the men of the lower country neither in speech nor faith, had greatly decreased. Such persons as the Bulygi Kurtsevichi did not find many imitators. In general, nobles were forced into the Brotherhood at that time either by misfortune or outlawry,—in a word, by offences which were inconvenient for repentance. Therefore a certain mystery, impenetrable as the fogs of the Dnieper, surrounded the predatory republic of the lower country. Concerning it men related wonders, which Pan Yan was curious to see with his own eyes. To tell the truth, he expected to come out of it safely; for an envoy is an envoy, especially from Prince Yeremi.

  While meditating in this fashion he gazed through the windows into the square. Meanwhile one hour had followed another, when suddenly it appeared to Pan Yan that he recognized a couple of figures going toward the Bell-ringers’ Corner to the wine-cellar of Dopula, the Wallachian. He looked more carefully, and saw Zagloba with Bogun. They went arm in arm, and soon disappeared in the dark doorway over which was the sign denoting a drinking-place and a wine-shop.

  The lieutenant was astonished at the presence of Bogun in Chigirin and his friendship with Zagloba.

  “Jendzian! are you here?” called he to his attendant.

  Jendzian appeared in the doorway of the adjoining room.

  “Listen to me, Jendzian! Go to the wine-shop where the sign hangs. You will find a fat nobleman with a hole in his forehead there. Tell him that some one wants to see him quickly. If he asks who it is, don’t tell him.”

  Jendzian hurried off, and in a short time Skshetuski saw him returning in company with Zagloba.

  “I welcome you,” said Pan Yan, when the noble appeared in the door of the room. “Do you remember me?”

  “Do I remember you? May the Tartars melt me into tallow and make candles of me for the mosques if I forget you! Some months ago you opened the door at Dopula’s with Chaplinski, which suited my taste exactly, for in the selfsame way I got out of prison once in Stamboul. And what is Pan Povsinoga, with the escutcheon Zervipludry, doing with his innocence and his sword? Don’t the sparrows always perch on his head, taking him for a withered tree?”

  “Pan Podbipienta is well, and asked to be remembered to you.”

  “He is a very rich man, but fearfully dull. If he should cut off three heads like his own, it would be only a head and a half, for he would cut off three half-heads. Pshaw! how hot it is, though it is only March yet! The tongue dries up in one’s throat.”

  “I have some excellent triple mead; maybe you would take a glass of it?”

  “It is a fool who refuses when a wise man offers. The barber has enjoined me to drink mead to draw melancholy from my head. Troublesome times for the nobility are approaching,—dies iræ et calamitatis. Chaplinski is breathless from fear; he visits Dopula’s no longer, for the Cossack elders drink there. I alone set my forehead bravely against danger, and keep company with those colonels, though their dignity smells of tar. Good mead! really very excellent! Where do you get it?”

  “I got this in Lubni. Are there many Cossack elders here?”

  “Who is not here? Fedor Yakubovich, Old Filon Daidyalo, Danilo Nechai, and their eye in the head, Bogun, who became my friend as soon as I outdrank him and promised to adopt him. Chigirin is filled with the odor of them. They are looking which way to turn, for they do not dare yet to take the side of Hmelnitski openly. But if they do not declare for him, it will be owing to me.”

  “How is that?”

  “While drinking with them I bring them over to the Commonwealth and argue them into loyalty. If the king does not give me a crown estate for this, then believe me there is no justice in the Commonwealth, nor reward for services; and in such a case it would be better to breed chickens than to risk one’s head pro bono publico.”

  “It would be better for you to risk your head fighting with them; but it appears to me you are only throwing away your money for nothing in treating them, for in that way you will never win them.”

  “I throw money away! For whom do you take me? Isn’t it enough for me to hobnob with trash, without paying their scores? I consider it a favor that I allow them to pay mine.”

  “And that fellow Bogun, what is he doing here?”

  “He? He keeps his ears open to hear reports from the Saitch, like the rest. That is why he came here. He is the favorite of all the Cossacks. They are after him like monkeys, for it is certain that the Pereyasláv regiment will follow him, and not Loboda. And who knows, too, whom Krechovski’s registered Cossacks will follow? Bogun is a brother to the men of the lower country when it is a question of attacking the Turks or the Tartars; but this time he is calculating very closely, for he confessed to me, in drink, that he was in love with a noblewoman, and intended to marry her. On this account it would not befit him, on the eve of marriage, to be a brother to slaves. He wishes, too, that I should adopt him and give him my arms. That is very excellent triple mead!”

  “Take another drink of it.”

  “I will, I will. They don’t sell such mead as that behind tavern-signs.”

  “You did not ask, perhaps, the name of the lady whom Bogun wants to marry?”

  “Well, my dear sir, what do I care about her name? I know only that when I put horns on Bogun, she will be Madame Deer. In my youthful years I was a fellow of no ordinary beauty. Only let me tell you how I carried off the palm of martyrdom in Galáts. You see that hole in my forehead? It is enough for me to say that the eunuchs in the harem of the local pasha made it.”

  “But you said the bullet of a robber made it.”

  “Did I? Then I told the truth; for every Turk is a robber, as God is my aid!”

  Further conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Zatsvilikhovski.

  “Well, my dear lieutenant,” said the old man, “the boats are ready, you have trusty men for attendants; you can start, in God’s name, this moment, if you like. And here are the letters.”

  “Then I’ll tell my people to be off for the shore at once.”

  “But where are you going?” asked Zagloba.

  “To Kudák.”

  “It will be hot for you there.”

  The lieutenant did not hear his prophecy, for he went out of the room into the court, where the Cossacks with horses were almost ready for the road.

  “To horse and to the shore!” commanded Pan Yan. “Put the horses on the boats, and wait for me.”

  Meanwhile the old man said to Zagloba: “I hear that you court the Cossack colonels, and drink with them.”

  “For the public good, most worthy standard-bearer.”

  “You have a nimble mind, but inclining rather to disgrace. You wish to bring the Cossacks to your side in their cups, so they may befriend you in case they win.”

  “Even if that were true, having been a martyr to the Turks, I do not wish to become one to the Cossacks; and there is nothing wonderful in that, for two mushrooms would spoil the best soup. And as to disgrace, I ask no one to drink it with me,—I drink it alone; and God grant that it taste no worse than this mead. Merit, like oil, must come to the top.”

  At that moment Skshetuski returned. “The men have started already,” said he.

  Zatsvilikhovski poured out a measure. “Here is to a pleasant journey!”

  “And a return in health!” added Zagloba.

  “You will have an easy journey, for the water is tremendous.”

  “Sit down, gentlemen, and drink the rest. It is not a large vessel.”

  They sat down and drank.

  “You will see a curious country,” said Zatsvilikhovski. “Greet Pan Grodzitski in Kudák for me. Ah, that is a soldier! He lives
at the end of the world, far from the eyes of the hetman, and he maintains such order that God grant its like might be in the whole Commonwealth. I know Kudák and the Cataracts well. Years ago I used to travel there, and there is gloom on the soul when one thinks of what is past and gone; but now—”

  Here the standard-bearer rested his milk-white head on his hand, and fell into deep thought. A moment of silence followed, broken only by the tramp of horses heard at the gate; for the rest of Skshetuski’s men were going to the boats at the shore.

  “My God!” said Zatsvilikhovski, starting from his meditation; “and there were better times formerly, though in the midst of turmoil. I remember Khotím, twenty-seven years ago, as if it were to-day! When the hussars under Lyubomirski moved to attack the janissaries, then the Cossacks in the trenches threw up their caps and shouted to Sahaidachny, till the earth trembled, ‘Let us die with the Poles!’ And what do we see to-day? To-day the lower country, which should be the first bulwark of Christendom, lets Tartars into the boundaries of the Commonwealth, to fall upon them when they are returning with booty. It is still worse; for Hmelnitski allies himself directly with Tartars, with whom he will murder Christians.”