All at once out of that dark mass approaching from the right side of the field flew on as it were the roar of sea waves, and the next moment one great shout rent the air.
“They see us!” bellowed Zagloba. “Dogs, ruffians, devils, wolves, scoundrels!”
The forest was so near that the fugitives almost felt its cold, austere breath; but also the cloud of Tartars became each moment more clearly outlined, and from the dark body of it long arms began to push out like the horns of some gigantic monster, and approached the fugitives with inconceivable rapidity. The trained ear of Volodyotski already distinguished clearly: “Allah! Allah!”
“My horse has stumbled!” shouted Zagloba.
“That is nothing!” cried Volodyovski
But through his head that moment there flew like thunderbolts the questions: “What will happen if the horses do not hold out? What will happen if one of them falls?” They were valiant Tartar steeds of iron endurance, but they had come already from Ploskiri, resting but little on that wild flight from the town to the first forest. They might, it is true, take the led horses, but they too were tired. “What is to be done?” thought Volodyovski; and his heart throbbed with alarm,—perhaps for the first time in his life,—not for himself, but for Helena, whom during that long journey he had come to love as his own sister. And he knew too that the Tartars when they had once begun pursuit would not relinquish it very soon. “Let them keep on, they will not catch her,” said he, setting his teeth.
“My horse has stumbled!” cried Zagloba a second time.
“That is nothing!” answered Volodyovski again.
They were now in the forest, darkness around them; but single Tartar horsemen were not farther than a few hundred yards behind. But the little knight knew now what to do.
“Jendzian,” cried he, “turn with the lady to the first path leading out of the highway.”
“Good, my master!”
The little knight turned to Zagloba. “Pistol in hand!” At the same time, seizing the bridle of Zagloba’s horse, he began to restrain his course.
“What are you doing?” cried the noble.
“Nothing! Hold in your horse!”
The distance between them and Jendzian, who had escaped with Helena, increased every moment. At last he came with her to a point where the highway turned rather sharply toward Zbaraj, and straight ahead lay a narrow forest-trail half hidden by branches. Jendzian rushed into it, and in a twinkle the two had disappeared in the thicket and the gloom.
Meanwhile Volodyovski had stopped his own horse and Zagloba’s.
“In the name of God’s mercy, what are you doing?” roared Zagloba.
“We delay the pursuit. There is no other salvation for the princess.”
“We shall perish!”
“Let us perish. Stop here right by the side of the road,—right here!”
Both stood close under the trees in the darkness; presently the mighty thumping of Tartar horses approached and roared like a storm till the whole forest was filled with it.
“It has come!” said Zagloba, raising the skin of wine to his mouth. He drank and drank, then shook himself. “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” coughed he. “I am ready for death.”
“This minute! this minute!” cried Volodyovski. “Three of them are riding in advance; that is what I wanted.”
In fact three horsemen appeared on the clear road, mounted evidently on the best horses,—"wolf-hunters,” so called in the Ukraine, for they came up with wolves in the chase,—and two or three hundred yards behind them a few hundred others, and still farther a whole dense throng of the horde.
When the first three came in front of the ambush two shots were discharged; then Volodyovski sprang like a panther into the middle of the road, and before Zagloba had time to think what was done the third Tartar was on the ground.
“Forward!” shouted the little knight.
Zagloba did not let the order be repeated, and they rushed over the road like a pair of wolves hunted by a pack of angry dogs. That moment the other Tartars hastened to the corpses, and seeing that those hunted wolves could bite to death they curbed their horses a little, waiting for their comrades.
“As you see, I knew that I should stop them,” said Volodyovski.
But although the fugitives gained a few hundred steps, the interruption in the chase did not last long. Only the Tartars pressed on in a larger crowd, not pushing forward singly.
The horses of the fugitives were wearied by the long road, and their speed slackened, especially that of Zagloba’s horse, which bearing such a considerable burden stumbled once and twice. What there was left of the old man’s hair stood on end at the thought that he should fall.
“Pan Michael, dearest Pan Michael, do not abandon me!” cried he, in despair.
“Oh, be of good heart!” answered the little knight.
“May the wolves tear this hor—”
He had not finished this sentence when the first arrow hissed near his ear, and after it others began to hiss and whistle and sing as if they were horseflies and bees. One passed so near that its head almost grazed Zagloba’s ear.
Volodyovski turned and again fired twice from his pistol at the pursuers.
Zagloba’s horse stumbled now so heavily that his nostrils were almost buried in the earth.
“By the living God, my horse is dying!” shouted he, in a heart-rending voice.
“From the saddle to the woods!” thundered Volodyovski.
Having given this order, he stopped his own horse, sprang off, and a moment later he and Zagloba vanished in the darkness. But this movement did not escape the slanting eyes of the Tartars, and several tens of them springing from their horses also gave chase. The branches tore the cap from Zagloba’s head, beat him on the face and caught his coat, but putting his feet behind his belt he made off as if he were thirty years of age. Sometimes he fell, but he was up again and off quicker than ever, puffing like a bellows. At last he fell into a deep hole, and felt that he could not crawl out again, for his strength had failed him completely.
“Where are you?” called Volodyovski, in a low voice.
“Down here! It’s all over with me,—save me, Pan Michael.”
Volodyovski sprang without hesitation to the hole and clapped his hand on Zagloba’s mouth: “Be silent! perhaps they will pass us! We will defend ourselves anyhow.”
By that time the Tartars came up. Some of them did in fact pass the hole, thinking that the fugitives had gone farther; others went slowly, examining the trees and looking around on every side. The knights held the breath in their breasts.
“Let some one fall in here,” thought Zagloba, in despair; “I’ll fall on him.”
Just then sparks scattered on every side; the Tartars began to strike fire. By the flash their wild faces could be seen, with their puffed cheeks and lips sticking out, blowing the lighted tinder. For a time they kept going around a few tens of steps from the hole like ill-omened forest phantoms, drawing nearer and nearer.
But at the last moment wonderful sounds of some sort, murmurs, and confused cries began to come from the highway and to rouse the slumbering depths. The Tartars stopped striking fire, and stood as if rooted to the earth. Volodyovski’s hand was biting into the shoulder of Zagloba.
The cries increased, and suddenly red lights burst forth, and with them was heard a salvo of musketry,—once, twice, three times,—followed by shouts of “Allah!” the clatter of sabres, the neighing of horses, tramping, and confused uproar. A battle was raging on the road.
“Ours, ours!” shouted Volodyovski.
“Slay! kill! strike! cut! slaughter!” bellowed Zagloba.
A second later a number of Tartars rushed past the hole in the wildest disorder, and vanished in the direction of their party. Volodyovski did not restrain himself; he sprang after them, and pres
sed on in the thicket and darkness.
Zagloba remained at the bottom of the hole. He tried to crawl up, but could not. All his bones were aching, and he was barely able to stand on his feet.
“Ah, scoundrels!” said he, looking around on every side, “you have fled; it is a pity some one of you did not stay,— I should have company in this hole, and I would show him where pepper grows! Oh, pagan trash, they are cutting you up like beasts this minute! Oh, for God’s sake, the uproar is increasing every moment! I wish that Yeremi himself were here; he would warm you. You are shouting, ‘Allah! Allah!’ The wolves will shout ‘Allah!’ over your carrion pretty soon. But that Pan Michael should leave me here alone! Well, nothing wonderful; he is eager, for he is young. After this last adventure I would follow him anywhere, for he is not a friend to leave one in distress. He is a wasp! In one minute he stung three! If at least I had that wine-skin with me! But those devils have surely taken it, or the horses have trampled it. Besides insects are devouring me in this ditch! What’s that?”
The shouts and discharges of musketry began to recede in the direction of the field and the first forest.
“Ah, ah!” thought Zagloba, “they are on their necks. Oh, dog-brothers, you could not hold out! Praise be to God in the highest!”
The shouts receded farther and farther.
“They ride lustily,” muttered he. “But I see that I shall have to sit in this ditch. It only remains now for the wolves to eat me. Bogun to begin with, then the Tartars, and wolves at the end! God grant a stake to Bogun and madness to the wolves! Our men will take care of the Tartars not in the worst fashion. Pan Michael! Pan Michael!”
Silence gave answer to Zagloba; only the pines murmured, and from afar came the sounds fainter and fainter.
“Shall I lie down to sleep here, or what? May the devil take it! Pan Michael!”
But Zagloba’s patience had a long trial yet, for dawn was in the sky when the clatter of hoofs was heard again on the road and lights shone in the forest.
“Pan Michael, I am here!”
“Crawl out.”
“But I cannot.”
Volodyovski with a torch in his hand stood over the hole, and giving his hand to Zagloba, said: “Well, the Tartars are gone; we drove them to the other forest.”
“But who came up?”
“Kushel and Roztvorovski, with two thousand horse. My dragoons are with them too.”
“Were there many of the Pagans?”
“A couple of thousand.”
“Praise be to God! Give me something to drink, for I am faint.”
Two hours later Zagloba, having eaten and drunk what he needed; was sitting on a comfortable saddle in the midst of Volodyovski’s dragoons, and at his side rode the little knight, who said,—
“Do not worry; for though we shall not come to Zbaraj in company with the princess, it would have been worse if she had fallen into the hands of the heathen.”
“But perhaps Jendzian will come back yet to Zbaraj.”
“He will not. The highway will be occupied; the party which we drove back will return soon and follow us. Besides Burlai may appear at any moment before Jendzian could come in. Hmelnitski and the Khan are marching on the other side from Konstantinoff.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Then he will fall into a trap with the princess.”
“Jendzian has wit enough to spring through between Zbaraj and Konstantinoff in time, and not let the regiments of Hmelnitski nor the parties of the Khan catch him. You see I have great confidence in his success.”
“God grant it!”
“He is a cunning lad, just like a fox. You have no lack of stratagem, but he is more cunning. We split our heads a great deal over plans to rescue the girl, but in the end our hands dropped, and through him the whole has been directed. He’ll slip out this time like a snake, for it is a question of his own life. Have confidence,—for God, who saved her so many times, is over her now; and remember that in Zbaraj you bade me have confidence when Zakhar came.”
Zagloba was strengthened somewhat by these words of Pan Michael, and then fell into deep thought.
“Pan Michael,” he said after a time, “have you asked Kushel what Skshetuski is doing?”
“He is in Zbaraj, and well; he came from Prince Koretski’s with Zatsvilikhovski.”
“But what shall we tell him?”
“Ah, there is the rub!”
“Does he think yet that the girl was killed in Kieff?”
“He does.”
“Have you told Kushel or any one else where we are coming from?”
“I have not, for I thought it better to take counsel first.”
“I should prefer to say nothing of the whole affair. If the girl should fall again into Cossack or Tartar hands (which God forbid!), it would be a new torture, just as if some one were to tear open all his wounds.”
“I’ll give my head that Jendzian takes her through.”
“I should gladly give my own to have him do so; but misfortune rages now in the world like a pestilence. Better be silent, and leave everything to the will of God.”
“So let it be. But will not Podbipienta give the secret to Skshetuski?”
“Don’t you know him? He gave his word of honor, which for that Lithuanian is sacred.”
Here Kushel joined them. They rode on together, talking, by the first rays of the rising sun, of public affairs, of the arrival at Zbaraj of the commanders in consequence of Yeremi’s wishes, of the impending arrival of the prince himself, and the inevitable and awful struggle with the whole power of Hmelnitski.
CHAPTER LVII.
Volodyovski and Zagloba found all the forces of the Crown assembled at Zbaraj, and waiting for the enemy. The cup-bearer of the Crown, Ostrorog, who had come from Konstantinoff, was there, and Lantskoronski, castellan of Kamenyets, who had gained the first victory at Bar; the third commander, Pan Firlei of Dombrovitsa, castellan of Belsk, and Andrei Serakovski, secretary of the Crown; Konyetspolski, the standard-bearer, and Pshiyemski, commander of the artillery, a warrior specially expert in the capture and defence of towns; and with them ten thousand troops, not counting a number of Prince Yeremi’s squadrons previously quartered at Zbaraj.
Pan Pshiyemski, on the southern side of the town and the castle and the two ponds, had laid out a strong camp, which he fortified in foreign fashion, and which it was only possible to capture in front; for at the rear and two sides it was defended by the ponds, the castle, and the river. In this camp the commanders intended to offer resistance to Hmelnitski, and delay his avalanche till the king, with the rest of the forces and the national militia of all the nobility, should come. But was that plan possible of execution in view of the power of Hmelnitski? There was much doubt, and there were reasonable causes for the doubt,—among them the disorder in the camp itself. First of all, secret contention was raging among the leaders. The commanders had come against their will to Zbaraj, yielding in this to the desires of Prince Yeremi. They wished at first to make their defence at Konstantinoff; but when the news went forth that Yeremi would appear in his own person only in case Zbaraj should be the point of defence, the soldiers declared immediately to the leaders of the Crown that they would go to Zbaraj, and would not fight elsewhere. Neither persuasion nor the authority of the baton availed; and in short the commanders discovered that if they should continue in longer resistance, the army, from the heavy hussar regiments to the last soldier of the foreign companies, would leave them and go over to the banners of Vishnyevetski. This was one of those sad cases of military insubordination of increasing frequency in that time, and caused by the incapacity of the leaders, their mutual disagreements, the unexampled terror before the power of Hmelnitski, and the defeats unheard of till then, especially the defeat of Pilavtsi.
So the commanders had to march to Zbaraj, where the command, in spite of the appointments made by
the king, had by the force of circumstance passed into the hands of Yeremi; for the army would obey only him,—fight and perish under him alone. But that leader de facto was not in Zbaraj yet; therefore unrest was increasing in the army, discipline was relaxed to the last degree, and courage fell. For it was already known that Hmelnitski, together with the Khan, was approaching with forces the like of which the eyes of men had not seen since the days of Tamerlane. Fresh tidings kept flying to the camp like ill-omened birds,—reports, each more recent and more terrible than the preceding,—and weakened the manhood of the soldiers. There were fears that a panic like that of Pilavtsi might break out suddenly and scatter that handful of an army which stood between Hmelnitski and the heart of the Commonwealth. The leaders themselves had lost their heads. Their contradictory orders were not carried out, or if carried out, with unwillingness. In fact Yeremi alone could avert the catastrophe hanging over the camp, the army, and the country.
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