The Deluge- Volume 2 Page 21

  Swedes were advancing.

  They were so near that it was impossible to retreat, especially since the king’s party had wearied horses. It only remained to break through, to perish, or to go into captivity. The unterrified king understood this in a flash; therefore he seized the hilt of his sword.

  “Cover the king and retreat!” cried Kmita.

  Tyzenhauz with twenty men pushed forward in the twinkle of an eye; but Kmita instead of joining them moved on at a sharp trot against the Swedes.

  He wore the Swedish dress, the same in which he disguised himself when going out from the cloister. Seeing a horseman coming toward them in such a dress, the Swedes thought perhaps this was some party of their own belonging to the King of Sweden; they did not hasten their pace, but the captain commanding pushed out beyond the first three.

  “What people are you?” asked he in Swedish, looking at the threatening and pale face of the young man approaching.

  Kmita rode up to him so closely that their knees almost touched, and without speaking a word fired from a pistol directly into his ear.

  A shout of terror was rent from the breasts of the Swedish cavalry; but still louder thundered the voice of Pan Andrei, “Strike!”

  And like a rock torn from a cliff rolling down, crushing everything in its course, so did he fall on the first rank, bearing death and destruction. The two young Kyemliches, like two bears, sprang after him into the whirl. The clatter of sabres on mail and helmets was heard, like the sound of hammers, and was followed straightway by outcries and groans.

  It seemed at the first moment to the astonished Swedes that three giants had fallen upon them in that wild mountain pass. The first three pushed back confused in the presence of the terrible man, and when the succeeding ones had extricated themselves from behind the bend of the pass, those in the rear were thrown back and confused. The horses fell to biting and kicking. The soldiers in the remoter ranks were not able to shoot, nor come to the assistance of those in front, who perished without aid under the blows of the three giants. In vain did they fall, in vain did they present their weapon points; here sabres were breaking, there men and horses fell. Kmita urged his horse till his hoofs were hanging above the heads of the steeds of his opponents, he was raging himself, cutting and thrusting. The blood rushed to his face, and from his eyes fire flashed. All thoughts were quenched in him save one,—he might perish, but he must detain the Swedes. That thought turned in him to a species of wild ecstasy; therefore his powers were trebled, his movements became like those of a leopard, mad, and swift as lightning. With blows of his sabre, which were blows beyond human, he crushed men as a thunderbolt crushes young trees; the twin Kyemliches followed, and the old man, standing a trifle in the rear, thrust his rapier out every moment between his sons, as a serpent thrusts out its bloody tongue.

  Meanwhile around the king there rose confusion. The nuncio, as at Jivyets, seized the reins of his horse, and on the other side the bishop of Cracow pulled back the steed with all his force; but the king spurred him till he stood on his hind legs.

  “Let me go!” cried the king. “As God lives! We shall pass through the enemy!”

  “My Lord, think of the country!” cried the bishop of Cracow.

  The king was unable to tear himself from their hands, especially since young Tyzenhauz with all his men closed the road. Tyzenhauz did not go to help Kmita; he sacrificed him, he wanted only to save the king.

  “By the passion of our Lord!” cried he, in despair, “those men will perish immediately! Gracious Lord, save yourself while there is time! I will hold them here yet awhile!”

  But the stubbornness of the king when once roused reckoned with nothing and no man. Yan Kazimir spurred his horse still more violently, and instead of retreating pushed forward.

  But time passed, and each moment might bring with it final destruction.

  “I will die on my own soil! Let me go!” cried the king.

  Fortunately, against Kmita and the Kyemliches, by reason of the narrowness of the pass, only a small number of men could act at once, consequently they were able to hold out long. But gradually even their powers began to be exhausted. A number of times the rapiers of the Swedes had struck Kmita’s body, and his blood began to flow. His eyes were veiled as it were by a mist. The breath halted in his breast. He felt the approach of death; therefore he wanted only to sell his life dearly. “Even one more!” repeated he to himself, and he sent down his steel blade on the head or the shoulder of the nearest horseman, and again he turned to another; but evidently the Swedes felt ashamed, after the first moment of confusion and fear, that four men were able to detain them so long, and they crowded forward with fury; soon the very weight of men and horses drove back the four men, and each moment more swiftly and strongly.

  With that Kmita’s horse fell, and the torrent covered the rider.

  The Kyemliches struggled still for a time, like swimmers who seeing that they are drowning make efforts to keep their heads above the whirl of the sea, but soon they also fell. Then the Swedes moved on like a whirlwind toward the party of the king.

  Tyzenhauz with his men sprang against them, and struck them in such fashion that the sound was heard through the mountains.

  But what could that handful of men, led by Tyzenhauz, do against a detachment of nearly three hundred strong?

  There was no doubt that for the king and his party the fatal hour of death or captivity must come.

  Yan Kazimir, preferring evidently the first to the second, freed finally the reins from the hands of the bishops, and pushed forward quickly toward Tyzenhauz. In an instant he halted as if fixed to the earth.

  Something uncommon had happened. To spectators it seemed as though the mountains themselves were coming to the aid of the rightful king.

  Behold on a sudden the edges of the pass quivered as if the earth were moving from its foundations, as if the pines on the mountain desired to take part in the battle; and logs of wood, blocks of snow and ice, stones, fragments of cliff’s, began to roll down with a terrible crash and roar on the ranks of the Swedes crowded in the pass. At the same time an unearthly howl was heard on each side of the narrow place.

  Below in the ranks began seething which passed human belief. It seemed to the Swedes that the mountains were falling and covering them. Shouts rose, the lamentations of crushed men, despairing cries for assistance, the whining of horses, the bite and terrible sound of fragments of cliffs on armor.

  At last men and horses formed one mass quivering convulsively, crushed, groaning, despairing, and dreadful. But the stones and pieces of cliff’s ground them continually, rolling without mercy on the now formless masses, the bodies of horses and men.

  “The mountaineers! the mountaineers!” shouted men in the retinue of the king.

  “With axes at the dog-brothers!” called voices from the mountain.

  And that very moment from both rocky edges appeared long-haired heads, covered with round fur caps, and after them came out bodies, and several hundred strange forms began to let themselves down on the slopes of the snow.

  Dark and white rags floating above their shoulders gave them the appearance of some kind of awful birds of prey. They pushed down in the twinkle of an eye; the sound of their axes emphasized their wild ominous shouting and the groans of the Swedes.

  The king himself tried to restrain the slaughter; some horsemen, still living, threw themselves on their knees, and raising their defenceless hands, begged for their lives. Nothing availed, nothing could stay the vengeful axes. A quarter of an hour later there was not one man living among the Swedes in the pass.

  After that the bloody mountaineers began to hurry toward the escort of the king.

  The nuncio looked with astonishment on those people, strange to him, large, sturdy, covered partly with sheepskin, sprinkled with blood, and shaking their still steaming axes.

  But at si
ght of the bishops they uncovered their heads. Many of them fell on their knees in the snow.

  The bishop of Cracow raising his tearful face toward heaven said, “Behold the assistance of God, behold Providence, which watches over the majesty of the king.” Then turning to the mountaineers, he asked, “Men, who are you?”

  “We are of this place,” answered voices from the crowd.

  “Do you know whom you have come to assist? This is your king and your lord, whom you have saved.”

  At these words a shout rose in the crowd. “The king! the king! Jesus, Mary! the king!” And the joyful mountaineers began to throng and crowd around Yan Kazimir. With weeping they fell to him from every side; with weeping, they kissed his feet, his stirrups, even the hoofs of his horse. Such excitement reigned, such shouting, such weeping that the bishops from fear for the king’s person were forced to restrain the excessive enthusiasm.

  And the king was in the midst of a faithful people, like a shepherd among sheep, and great tears were flowing down his face. Then his countenance became bright, as if some sudden change had taken place in his soul, as if a new, great thought from heaven by birth had flashed into his mind, and he indicated with his hand that he wished to speak; and when there was silence he said with a voice so loud that the whole multitude heard him,—

  “O God, Thou who hast saved me by the hands of simple people, I swear by the suffering and death of Thy Son to be a father to them from this moment forward.”

  “Amen!” responded the bishops.

  For a certain time a solemn silence reigned, then a new burst of joy. They inquired of the mountaineers whence they had come into the passes, and in what way they had appeared to rescue the king. It turned out that considerable parties of Swedes had been wandering about Chorshtyn, and, not capturing the castle itself, they seemed to seek some one and to wait. The mountaineers too had heard of a battle which those parties had delivered against troops among whom it was said that the king himself was advancing. Then they determined to push the Swedes into an ambush, and sending to them deceitful guides, they lured them into the pass.

  “We saw,” said the mountaineers, “how those four horsemen attacked those dogs; we wanted to assist the four horsemen, but were afraid to fall upon the dog-brothers too soon!”

  Here the king seized his head. “Mother of Thy only Son!” cried he, “find Babinich for me! Let us give him at least a funeral! And he is the man who was considered a traitor, the one who first shed his own blood for us.”

  “It was I who accused him. Gracious Lord!” said Tyzenhauz.

  “Find him, find him!” cried the king. “I will not leave here till I look upon his face and put my blessing on him.”

  The soldiers and the mountaineers sprang to the place of the first struggle, and soon they removed from the pile of dead horses and men Pan Andrei. His face was pale, all bespattered with blood, which was hanging in large stiffened drops on his mustaches; his eyes were closed; his armor was bent from the blows of swords and horses’ hoofs. But that armor had saved him from being crushed, and to the soldier who raised him it seemed as though he heard a low groan.

  “As God is true, he is alive!” cried he.

  “Remove his armor,” called others.

  They cut the straps quickly. Kmita breathed more deeply.

  “He is breathing, he is breathing! He is alive!” repeated a number of voices.

  But he lay a certain time motionless; then he opened his eyes. At that time one of the soldiers poured a little gorailka into his mouth; others raised him by the armpits.

  Now the king, to whose hearing the cry repeated by several voices had come, rode up in haste. The soldiers drew into his presence Pan Andrei, who was hanging on them and slipping from their hands to the ground. Still, at sight of the king consciousness returned to him for a moment, a smile almost childlike lighted his face, and his pale lips whispered clearly,—

  “My lord, my king, is alive—is free.” And tears shone on his eyelashes.

  “Babinich, Babinich! with what can I reward you?” cried the king.

  “I am not Babinich; I am Kmita!” whispered the knight.

  When he had said this he hung like a corpse in the arms of the soldiers.

  CHAPTER XI.

  Since the mountaineers gave sure information that on the road to Chorshtyn there was nothing to be heard of other Swedish parties, the retinue of the king turned toward the castle, and soon found themselves on the highway, along which the journey was easiest and least tiresome. They rode on amid songs of the mountaineers and shouts, “The king is coming! The king is coming!” and along the road new crowds of men joined them, armed with flails, scythes, forks, and guns, so that Yan Kazimir was soon at the head of a considerable division of men, not trained, it is true, but ready at any moment to go with him even to Cracow and spill their blood for their sovereign. Near Chorshtyn more than a thousand “householders” and half-wild shepherds surrounded the king.

  Then nobles from Novy Sanch and Stary Sanch began to come in. They said that a Polish regiment, under command of Voynillovich, had defeated, that morning, just before the town of Novy Sanch, a considerable detachment of Swedes, of which almost all the men were either slain, or drowned in the Kamyenna or Dunayets.

  This turned out to be really the fact, when soon after on the road banners began to gleam, and Voynillovich himself came up with the regiment of the voevoda of Bratslav.

  The king greeted with joy a celebrated and to him well-known knight, and amidst the universal enthusiasm of the people and the army, he rode on toward Spij. Meanwhile men on horseback rushed with all breath to forewarn the marshal that the king was approaching, and to be ready to receive him.

  Joyous and noisy was the continuation of the journey. New crowds were added continually. The nuncio, who had left Silesia filled with fear for the king’s fate and his own, and for whom the beginning of the journey had increased this fear, was beside himself now with delight, for he was certain that the future would surely bring victory to the king, and besides to the church over heretics. The bishops shared his joy; the lay dignitaries asserted that the whole people, from the Carpathians to the Baltic, would grasp their weapons as these crowds had done. Voynillovich stated that for the greater part this had taken place already. And he told what was to be heard in the country, what a terror had fallen upon the Swedes, how they dared go no longer outside fortifications in small numbers, how they were leaving the smaller castles, which they burned, and taking refuge in the strongest.

  “The Polish troops are beating their breasts with one hand, and are beginning to beat the Swedes with the other,” said he. “Vilchkovski, who commands the hussar regiment of your Royal Grace, has already thanked the Swedes for their service, and that in such fashion that he fell upon them at Zakjevo, under the command of Colonel Altenberg, and slew a large number,—destroyed almost all. I, with the assistance of God, drove them out of Novy Sanch, and God gave a noted victory. I do not know whether one escaped alive. Pan Felitsyan Kohovski with the infantry of Navoi helped me greatly, and so they received pay for those dragoons at least whom they attacked two or three days ago.”

  “What dragoons?” asked the king.

  “Those whom your Royal Grace sent ahead from Silesia. The Swedes fell on these suddenly, and though not able to disperse them, for they defended themselves desperately, they inflicted considerable loss. And we were almost dying of despair, for we thought that your Royal Grace was among those men in your own person, and we feared lest some evil might happen to majesty. God inspired your Royal Grace to send the dragoons ahead. The Swedes heard of it at once, and occupied the roads everywhere.”

  “Do you hear, Tyzenhauz?” asked the king. “An experienced soldier is talking.”

  “I hear, Gracious Lord,” answered the young magnate.

  “And what further, what further? Tell on!” said the king, turning to Voyn
illovich.

  “What I know I shall surely not hide. Jegotski and Kulesha are active in Great Poland; Varshytski has driven Lindorm from the castle of Pilets; Dankoff is defending itself; Lantskoron is in our hands; and in Podlyasye, Sapyeha is gaining every day at Tykotsin. The Swedes are in greater straits in the castle, and with them is failing the prince voevoda of Vilna. As to the hetmans, they have moved already from Sandomir to Lyubelsk, showing clearly that they are breaking with the enemy. The voevoda of Chernigov is with them, and from the region about is marching to them every living man who can hold a sabre in his hand. They say, too, that there is some kind of federation to be formed there against the Swedes, in which is the hand of Sapyeha as well as that of Stefan Charnyetski.”

  “Is Charnyetski now in Lyubelsk?”

  “He is, your Royal Grace. But he is here to-day and there to-morrow. I have to join him, but where to find him I know not.”

  “There will be noise around him,” said the king; “you will not need to inquire.”