The Deluge- Volume 2 Page 40

  “Then we must think of something!” repeated Kmita.

  But that night they thought of nothing. Next morning, however, Kmita went with the Tartars toward the camp lying between Suhovol and Yanov, and discovered that Akbah Ulan had exaggerated, saying that the infantry was intrenched on that side; for they had little ditches, nothing more. It was possible to make a protracted defence from them, especially against Tartars, who did not go readily to the attack of such places; but it was impossible for men in them to think of enduring any kind of siege.

  “If I had infantry,” thought Kmita, “I would go into fire.”

  But it was difficult even to dream of bringing infantry; for, first, Sapyeha himself had not very many; second, there was no time to bring them.

  Kmita approached so closely that Boguslav’s infantry opened fire on him; but he did not care. He rode among the bullets and examined, looked around; and the Tartars, though less enduring of fire, had to keep pace with him. Then cavalry rushed out and undertook to flank him. He retreated about three thousand yards and turned again. But they had ridden back toward the trenches. In vain did the Tartars let off a cloud of arrows after them. Only one man fell from his horse, and that one his comrades saved, carried in.

  Kmita on returning, instead of riding straight to Suhovola, rushed toward the west and came to the Kamyonka.

  This swampy river had overflowed widely, for that year the springtime was wonderfully abundant in water. Kmita looked at the river, threw a number of broken branches into it so as to measure the speed of the current, and said to Ulan,—

  “We will go around their flank and strike them in the rear.”

  “Horses cannot swim against the current.”

  “It goes slowly. They will swim! The water is almost standing.”

  “The horses will be chilled, and the men cannot endure it. It is cold yet.”

  “Oh, the men will swim holding to the horses’ tails! That is your Tartar way.”

  “The men will grow stiff.”

  “They will get warm under fire.”

  “Kismet (fate)!”

  Before it had grown dark in the world, Kmita had ordered them to cut bunches of willows, dry reeds, and rushes, and tie them to the sides of the horses. When the first star appeared, he sent about eight hundred horses into the water, and they began to swim. He swam himself at the head of them; but soon he saw that they were advancing so slowly that in two days they would not swim past the trenches. Then he ordered them to swim to the other bank.

  That was a dangerous undertaking. The other bank was steep and swampy. The horses, though light, sank in it to their bellies. But Kmita’s men pushed forward, though slowly and saving one another, while advancing a couple of furlongs.

  The stars indicated midnight. Then from the south came to them echoes of distant fighting.

  “The battle has begun!” shouted Kmita.

  “We shall drown!” answered Akbah Ulan.

  “After me!”

  The Tartars knew not what to do, when on a sudden they saw that Kmita’s horse issued from the mud, evidently finding firm footing.

  In fact, a bench of sand had begun. On the top of it there was water to the horses’ breasts, but under foot was solid ground. They went therefore more swiftly. On the left distant fires were gleaming.

  “Those are the trenches!” said Kmita, quietly. “Let us avoid them, go around!”

  After a while they had really passed the trenches. Then they turned to the left, and put their horses into the river again, so as to land beyond the trenches.

  More than a hundred horses were swamped at the shore; but almost all the men came out. Kmita ordered those who had lost their beasts to sit behind other horsemen, and they moved toward the trenches. First he left volunteers with the order not to disturb the trenches till he should have gone around them to the rear. When he was approaching he heard shots, at first few, then more frequent.

  “It is well!” said he; “Sapyeha is attacking!”

  And he moved on.

  In the darkness was visible only a multitude of heads jumping with the movement of the horses; sabres did not rattle, armor did not sound; the Tartars and volunteers knew how to move in silence, like wolves.

  From the side of Yanov the firing became more and more vigorous; it was evident that Sapyeha was moving along the whole line.

  But on the trenches toward which Kmita was advancing shouts were heard also. A number of piles of wood were burning near them, casting around a strong light. By this light Pan Andrei saw infantry firing rarely, more occupied in looking in front at the field, where cavalry was fighting with volunteers.

  They saw him too from the trenches, but instead of firing they greeted the advancing body with a loud shout. The soldiers thought that Boguslav had sent them reinforcements.

  But when barely a hundred yards separated the approaching body from the trenches, the infantry began to move about unquietly; an increasing number of soldiers, shading their eyes with their hands, were looking to see what kind of people were coming.

  When fifty yards distant a fearful howl tore the air, and Kmita’s force rushed like a storm, took in the infantry, surrounded them like a ring, and that whole mass of men began to move convulsively. You would have said that a gigantic serpent was stifling a chosen victim.

  In this crowd piercing shouts were heard. “Allah!” “Herr Jesus!” “Mein Gott!”

  Behind the trenches new shouts went up; for the volunteers, though in weaker numbers, recognizing that Pan Babinich was in the trenches, pressed on the cavalry with fury. Meanwhile the sky, which had been cloudy for some time, as is common in spring, poured down a heavy, unexpected rain. The blazing fires were put out, and the battle went on in the darkness.

  But the battle did not last long. Attacked on a sudden, Boguslav’s infantry went under the knife. The cavalry, in which were many Poles, laid down their arms. The foreigners, namely, one hundred dragoons, were cut to pieces.

  When the moon came out again from behind the clouds, it lighted only crowds of Tartars finishing the wounded and taking plunder.

  But neither did that last long. The piercing sound of a pipe was heard; Tartars and volunteers as one man sprang to their horses.

  “After me!” cried Kmita.

  And he led them like a whirlwind to Yanov.

  A quarter of an hour later the ill-fated place was set on fire at four corners, and in an hour one sea of flame was spread as widely as Yanov extended. Above the conflagration pillars of fiery sparks were flying toward the ruddy sky.

  Thus did Kmita let the hetman know that he had taken the rear of Boguslav’s army.

  He himself like an executioner, red from the blood of men, marshalled his Tartars amid the fire, so as to lead them on farther.

  They were already in line and extending into column, when suddenly, on a field as bright as in day, from the fire, he saw before him a division of the elector’s gigantic cavalry.

  A knight led them, distinguishable from afar, for he wore silver-plate armor, and sat on a white horse.

  “Boguslav!” bellowed Kmita, with an unearthly voice, and rushed forward with his whole Tartar column.

  They approached one another, like two waves driven by two winds. A considerable space divided them; the horses on both sides reached their greatest speed, and went with ears down like hounds, almost sweeping the earth with their bellies. On one side large men with shining breastplates, and sabres held erect in their right hands; on the other, a black swarm of Tartars.

  At last they struck in a long line on the clear field; but then something terrible took place. The Tartar swarm fell as grain bent by a whirlwind; the gigantic men rode over it and flew farther, as if the men and the horses had the power of thunderbolts and the wings of a storm.

  Some of the Tartars sprang up and began to pursue. It was possible to ri
de over the wild men, but impossible to kill them at once; so more and more of them hastened after the fleeing cavalry. Lariats began to whistle in the air.

  But at the head of the retreating cavalry the rider on the white horse ran ever in the first rank, and among the pursuers was not Kmita.

  Only in the gray of dawn did the Tartars begin to return, and almost every man had a horseman on his lariat. Soon they found Kmita, and carried him in unconsciousness to Pan Sapyeha.

  The hetman himself took a seat at Kmita’s bedside. About midday Pan Andrei opened his eyes.

  “Where is Boguslav?” were his first words.

  “Cut to pieces. God gave him fortune at first; then he came out of the birch groves and in the open field fell on the infantry of Pan Oskyerko; there he lost men and victory. I do not know whether he led away even five hundred men, for your Tartars caught a good number of them.”

  “But he himself?”

  “Escaped!”

  Kmita was silent awhile; then said;—

  “I cannot measure with him yet. He struck me with a double-handed sword on the head, and knocked me down with my horse. My morion was of trusty steel, and did not let the sword through; but I fainted.”

  “You should hang up that morion in a church.”

  “I will pursue him, even to the end of the world!” said Kmita.

  To this the hetman answered: “See what news I have received to-day after the battle!”

  Kmita read aloud the following words,—

  The King of Sweden has moved from Elblang; he is marching on Zamost, thence to Lvoff against Yan Kazimir. Come, your worthiness, with all your forces, to save king and country, for I cannot hold out alone.

  Charnyetski.

  A moment of silence.

  “Will you go with us, or will you go with the Tartars to Taurogi?”

  Kmita closed his eyes. He remembered the words of Father Kordetski, and what Volodyovski had told him of Pan Yan, and said,—

  “Let private affairs wait! I will meet the enemy at the side of the country!”

  The hetman pressed Pan Andrei’s head. “You are a brother to me!” said he; “and because I am old, receive my blessing.”

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  At a time when all living men in the Commonwealth were mounting their horses Karl Gustav stayed continually in Prussia, busied in capturing the towns of that province and in negotiating with the elector.

  After an easy and unexpected conquest, the quick soldier soon saw that the Swedish lion had swallowed more than his stomach could carry. After the return of Yan Kazimir he lost hope of retaining the Commonwealth; but while making a mental abdication of the whole, he wished at least to retain the greater part of his conquest, and above all Royal Prussia,—a province fruitful, dotted with large towns, wealthy, and adjoining his own Pomerania. But as that province was first to defend itself, so did it continue faithful to its lord and the Commonwealth. The return of Yan Kazimir, and the war begun by the confederation of Tyshovtsi might revive the courage of Prussia, confirm it in loyalty, give it will for endurance; therefore Karl Gustav determined to crush the uprising, and to wipe out Kazimir’s forces so as to take from Prussians the hope of resistance.

  He had to do this for the sake of the elector, who was ever ready to side with the stronger. The King of Sweden knew him thoroughly, and doubted not for a moment that if the fortune of Yan Kazimir should preponderate, the elector would be on his side again.

  When, therefore, the siege of Marienburg advanced slowly,—for the more it was attacked the more stubbornly did Pan Weiher defend it,—Karl Gustav marched to the Commonwealth, so as to reach Yan Kazimir again, even in the remotest corner of the land.

  And since with him deed followed decision as swiftly as thunder follows lightning, he raised his army disposed in towns; and before any one in the Commonwealth had looked around, before the news of his march had spread, he had passed Warsaw and had rushed into the greatest blaze of conflagration.

  Driven by anger, revenge, and bitterness, he moved on like a storm. Behind him ten thousand horse trampled the fields, which were still covered with snow; and taking the infantry from the garrisons, he went on, like a whirlwind, toward the far south of the Commonwealth.

  On the road he burned and pursued. He was not now that recent Karl Gustav, the kindly, affable, and joyous lord, clapping his hands at Polish cavalry, winking at feasts, and praising the soldiers. Now, wherever he showed himself the blood of peasants and nobles flowed in a torrent. On the road he annihilated “parties,” hanged prisoners, spared no man.

  But as when, in the thick of the pine-woods, a mighty bear rushes forward with heavy body crushing branches and brush on the way, while wolves follow after, and not daring to block his path, pursue, press nearer and nearer behind, so did those “parties” pursuing the armies of Karl join in throngs denser and denser, and follow the Swedes as a shadow a man, and still more enduringly than a shadow, for they followed in the day and the night, in fair and foul weather; before him too bridges were ruined, provisions destroyed, so that he had to march as in a desert, without a place for his head or anything with which to give strength to his body when hungry.

  Karl Gustav noted quickly how terrible his task was. The war spread around him as widely as the sea spreads around a ship lost in the waters. Prussia was on fire; on fire was Great Poland, which had first accepted his sovereignty, and first wished to throw off the Swedish yoke; Little Poland was on fire, and so were Russia, Lithuania, and Jmud. In the castles and large towns the Swedes maintained themselves yet, as if on islands; but the villages, the forests, the fields, the rivers, were already in Polish hands. Not merely a single man, or small detachments, but a whole regiment might not leave the main Swedish army for two hours; for if it did the regiment vanished without tidings, and prisoners who fell into the hands of peasants died in terrible tortures.

  In vain had Karl Gustav given orders to proclaim in villages and towns that whoso of peasants should bring an armed noble, living or dead, would receive freedom forever and land as a reward; for peasants, as well as nobles and townsmen, marched off to the woods. Men from the mountains, men from deep forests, men from meadows and fields, hid in the woods, formed ambushes on the roads against the Swedes, fell upon the smaller garrisons, and cut scouting-parties to pieces. Flails, forks, and scythes, no less than the sabres of nobles, were streaming with Swedish blood.

  All the more did wrath rise in the heart of Karl, that a few months before he had gathered in that country so easily; hence he could hardly understand what had happened, whence these forces, whence that resistance, whence that awful war for life or death, the end of which he saw not and could not divine.

  Frequent councils were held in the Swedish camp. With the king marched his brother Adolph, prince of Bipont, who had command over the army; Robert Douglas; Henry Horn, relative of that Horn who had been slain by the scythe of a peasant at Chenstohova; Waldemar, Prince of Denmark, and that Miller who had left his military glory at the foot of Yasna Gora; Aschemberg, the ablest cavalry leader among the Swedes; Hammerskiold, who commanded the artillery; and the old robber Marshal Arwid Wittemberg, famed for rapacity, living on the last of his health, for he was eaten by the Gallic disease; Forgell, and many others, all leaders skilled in the capture of cities, and in the field yielding in genius to the king only.

  These men were terrified in their hearts lest the whole army with the king should perish through toil, lack of food, and the fury of the Poles. Old Wittemberg advised the king directly against the campaign: “How will you go, O King,” said he, “to the Russian regions after an enemy who destroys everything on the way, but is unseen himself? What will you do if horses lack not only hay, but even straw from the roofs of cottages, and men fall from exhaustion? Where are the armies to come to our aid, where are the castles in which to draw breath and rest our weary limbs? My fame is not equal to yours; but
were I Karl Gustav, I would not expose that glory acquired by so many victories to the fickle fortune of war.”

  To which Karl Gustav answered: “And neither would I, were I Wittemberg.”

  Then he mentioned Alexander of Macedon, with whom he liked to be compared, and marched forward, pursuing Charnyetski. Charnyetski, not having forces so great nor so well trained, retreated before him, but retreated like a wolf ever ready to turn on his enemy. Sometimes he went in advance of the Swedes, sometimes at their flanks, and sometimes in deep forests he let them go in advance; so that while they thought themselves the pursuers, he, in fact, was the hunter. He cut off the unwary; here and there he hunted down a whole party, destroyed foot-regiments marching slowly, attacked provision-trains. The Swedes never knew where he was. More than once in the darkness of night they began to fire from muskets and cannons into thickets, thinking that they had an enemy before them. They were mortally wearied; they marched in cold, in hunger, in affliction, and that vir molestissimus (most harmful man) hung about them continually, as a hail-cloud hangs over a grain-field.