With Fire and Sword

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “Go pass the night in the castle! Go pull the Poles out of the trenches as you promised me!”

  “Great Khan of all the hordes!” said Hmelnitski, with a powerful voice, “you are mighty, and except the Sultan the mightiest on earth; you are wise and powerful, but can you send forth an arrow from your bow to the stars, or can you measure the depth of the sea?”

  The Khan looked at him with astonishment.

  “You cannot,” continued Hmelnitski, with still more force; “so can I not measure all the pride and insolence of Yeremi! If I could dream that he would not be terrified at you, O Khan, that he would not be submissive at sight of you, would not beat with his forehead before you, but would raise his insolent hand against your person, shed the blood of your warriors, and insult you, O mighty monarch, as well as the least of your murzas,—if I could have dared to think that, I should have shown contempt to you whom I honor and love.”

  “Allah!” said the Khan, more and more astonished.

  “But I will tell you this,” continued Hmelnitski, with increasing assurance in his voice and his manner: “you are great and powerful; nations and monarchs from the east to the west incline before you and call you a lion; Yeremi alone does not fall on his face before your beard. If then you do not rub him out, if you do not bend his neck and ride on his back, your power is in vain, your glory is empty; for they will say that one Polish prince has dishonored the Tsar of the Crimea and received no punishment,—that he is greater, that he is mightier than you.”

  Dull silence followed; the murzas, the agas, and the mullahs looked on the face of the Khan, as on the sun, holding the breath in their breasts. He had his eyes closed, and was thinking. Hmelnitski was resting on his baton and waiting confidently.

  “You have said it,” answered the Khan at last. “I will bend the neck of Yeremi; I will sit on his back as on a horse, so it may not be said from the east to the west that an unbelieving dog has disgraced me.”

  “God is great!” cried the murzas, with one voice.

  Joy shot from the eyes of Hmelnitski. At one step he had averted destruction hanging over his head, and turned a doubtful ally into a most faithful one. At every moment that lion knew how to turn himself into a serpent.

  Both camps till late at night were as active as bees warmed by the spring sun in the swarming-season, while on the battle-field slept—an endless and eternal sleep—the knights thrust through with spears, cut with swords, pierced with arrows and bullets. The moon rose, and began her course over the field of death, was reflected in pools of stiffened blood, brought forth from the darkness every moment new piles of slain, passed from some bodies, came quietly to others, looked into open and lifeless eyeballs, lighted up blue faces, fragments of broken weapons, bodies of horses; and her rays grew pale, at times very pale, as if terrified with what they saw. Along the field there ran here and there, alone and in little groups, certain ominous figures,—camp-followers and servants, who had come to plunder the slain, as jackals follow lions. But superstitious fear drove them away at last. There was something awful and mysterious in that field covered with corpses, in that calmness and quiet of human forms recently alive, and in that silent harmony with which Poles, Turks, Tartars, and Cossacks lay side by side. The wind at times rustled in the bushes growing over the field, and to the soldiers watching in the trenches it seemed that those were the souls of the slain, circling above their bodies. It was said in fact that when midnight had struck in Zbaraj, over the whole field, from the bulwark of the Poles to the tabor of the Cossacks, there rose with a rustle as it were a countless flock of birds. Wailing voices were heard also in the air, enormous sighs, which made men’s hair stand on end, and groans. Those who were yet to fall in that struggle, and whose ears were more open to cries from beyond the earth, heard clearly the Polish spirits, when flying away, cry: “Before thy eyes, O Lord, we lay down our sins;” and the Cossacks groan: “O Christ, O Christ, have mercy on us!” As they had fallen in a war of brothers, they could not fly straight to light eternal, but were predestined to fly somewhere in the dark distance, and hover in the wind over this vale of tears, to weep and groan by night, till the full remission of their offences,—till they should receive pardon at the feet of Christ, and oblivion for their sins.

  But at that time the hearts of men grew harder yet, and no angel of peace flew over the field.

  CHAPTER LVIII.

  Next morning, before the sun had scattered its golden rays over the sky, a new protecting rampart encircled the Polish camp. The old ramparts included too much space. Defence and the giving of mutual assistance were difficult within them. The Prince and Pan Pshiyemski, in view of this, decided to enclose the troops within narrower intrenchments. They worked vigorously, the hussars as well as all the other regiments, and the camp-servants. Only at three o’clock in the morning did sleep close the eyes of the wearied knights, but at that hour all save the guards were sleeping like stones. The enemy labored also, and then was quiet for a long time, after the recent defeat. No assault was looked for that day.

  Skshetuski, Pan Longin, and Zagloba sat in their tent drinking beer, thickened with bits of cheese, and talked of the labors of the past night with that satisfaction peculiar to soldiers after victory.

  “It is my habit to lie down about the evening milking, and rise with the dawn, as did the ancients,” said Zagloba, “but in war it is difficult! You sleep when you can, and you rise when they wake you. I am vexed that we must incommode ourselves for such rubbish; but it cannot be helped, such are the times. We paid them well yesterday; if they get such a feast a couple of times more, they won’t want to wake us.”

  “Do you know whether many of ours have fallen?” asked Podbipienta.

  “Oh, not many; more of the assailants always fall. You are not so experienced in this as I am, for you have not been through so many wars. We old soldiers have no need to count bodies; we can estimate the number from the battle itself.”

  “I shall learn from you, gentlemen,” said Pan Longin, with amiability.

  “Yes, if you have wit enough; but I haven’t much hope of that.”

  “Oh, give us peace!” said Skshetuski. “This is not Podbipienta’s first war. God grant the foremost knights to act as he did yesterday.”

  “I did what I could,” said the Lithuanian, “not what I wanted.”

  “Still your action was not bad,” said Zagloba, patronizingly; “and that others surpassed you [here he began to curl his mustaches] is not your fault.”

  The Lithuanian listened with downcast eyes and sighed, thinking of his ancestor Stoveiko and the three heads.

  At that moment the tent door opened and Pan Michael entered quickly, glad as a goldfinch on a bright morning.

  “Well, we are here,” said Zagloba; “give him some beer.”

  The little knight pressed the hands of his three comrades, and said: “You should see how many balls are lying on the square; it passes imagination! You can’t pass without hitting one.”

  “I saw that too,” said Zagloba, “for when I rose I walked a little through the camp. All the hens in the province of Lvoff won’t lay so many eggs in two years. Oh, I only wish they were eggs! Then we should have them fried; and you must know, gentlemen, that I consider a plate of fried eggs the greatest delicacy. I am a born soldier, and so are you. I eat willingly what is good, if there is only enough of it. On this account too I am more eager for battle than the pampered youngsters of to-day who can’t eat anything unusual without getting the gripes.”

  “But you scored a success yesterday with Burlai,” said Volodyovski. “To cut down Burlai in that fashion! As I live I did not expect that of you, and he was a warrior famous throughout the Ukraine and Turkey.”

  “Pretty good work, wasn’t it?” asked Zagloba, with satisfaction. “It’s not my first, it’s not my first, Pan Michael. I see we were all looking for poppyseed in the bottom of the bushel; but
we have found four, and such another four you could not find in the whole Commonwealth. If I should go with you, gentlemen, and with our prince at the head, we could reach even Stamboul! Just think! Skshetuski killed Burdabut, and yesterday Tugai Bey.”

  “Tugai Bey is not killed,” interrupted the colonel. “I felt that the sabre was turning in my hand; then they separated us.”

  “All one; don’t interrupt me, Pan Yan! Pan Michael cut up Bogun at Warsaw, as we have said—”

  “It is better not to mention that,” interrupted the Lithuanian.

  “What is said is said,” answered Zagloba, “though I should prefer not to mention it. But I go further: Here is Pan Podbipienta from Myshekishki, who finished Pulyan, and I Burlai. I will not hide from you, however, that I would give all these for Burlai alone; and this perhaps because I had terrible work with him. He was a devil, not a Cossack. If I had sons like him legitimately born, I should leave them a splendid name. I am only curious to know what his Majesty the King and the Diet will say when they reward us,—who live more on brimstone and saltpetre than anything else.”

  “There was a knight greater than all of us,” said Pan Longin; “and no one knows his name or mentions it.”

  “I should like to know who he was,—one of the ancients?” asked Zagloba, offended.

  “No; he was that man, brother, who at Tshtsiana brought the king Gustavus Adolphus to the ground with his horse, and took him prisoner.”

  “I heard it was at Putsek,” interrupted Volodyovski.

  “But the king tore away from him, and escaped,” said Skshetuski.

  “He did,” said Zagloba, closing his eyes. “I know something about that matter, for I was then under Konyetspolski, father of the standard-bearer. Modesty did not permit that knight to mention his own name, therefore no one knows it; and believe me, Gustavus Adolphus was a great warrior,—almost equal to Burlai; but in the hand-to-hand conflict with Burlai I had heavier work. It is I who tell you this.”

  “That means that you overthrew Gustavus Adolphus?” said Volodyovski.

  “Have I boasted of it, Pan Michael? Then let it remain unremembered. I have something to boast of to-day; no need of bringing up old times! This horrid beer rattles terribly in the stomach, and the more cheese there is in it the worse it rattles. I prefer wine, though God be praised for what we have! Soon perhaps we shall not have even the beer. The priest Jabkovski tells me that we are likely to have short rations; and he is all the more troubled, for he has a belly as big as a barn. He is a rare Bernardine, with whom I have fallen desperately in love. There is more of the soldier than the monk in him. If he should hit a man on the snout, then you might order his coffin on the spot.”

  “But,” said Volodyovski, “I have not told you how handsomely the priest Yaskolski acted last night. He fixed himself in that corner of the tower at the right side of the castle, and looked at the fight. You must know that he is a wonderfully good shot. Said he to Jabkovski: ‘I won’t shoot Cossacks, for they are Christians after all, though their deeds are disgusting to the Lord; but Tartars,’ said he, ‘I cannot stand;’ and so he peppered away at the Tartars, and he spoiled about a score and a half of them during the battle.”

  “I wish all priests were like him,” sighed Zagloba; “but our Mukhovetski only raises his hands to heaven and weeps because so much Christian blood is flowing.”

  “But give us peace,” said Skshetuski, earnestly. “Mukhovetski is a holy man, and you have the best proof of it in this, that though he is not the senior of these two, they bow down before his worthiness.”

  “Not only do I not deny his holiness,” retorted Zagloba, “but I suppose he would be able to convert the Khan himself. Oh, gentlemen, his Majesty the Khan must be so mad that the lice on him are standing on their heads from fright. If we have negotiations with the Khan, I will go with the commissioners. The Khan and I are old acquaintances. Once he took a great fancy to me. Perhaps he will remember me now.”

  “They will surely choose Yanitski to negotiate,” said Skshetuski, “for he speaks Tartar as well as Polish.”

  “And so do I. The murzas and I are as well acquainted as white-faced horses. They wanted to give me their daughters when I was in the Crimea so as to have beautiful grandchildren, as I was young in those days, and had made no pacta conventa with my innocence like Podbipienta. I played many a prank.”

  “Ah, it is disgusting to hear him!” said Pan Longing dropping his eyes.

  “And you repeat the same thing like a trained starling. It is clear that the Botvinians are not well acquainted with human speech yet.”

  Further conversation was interrupted by a noise beyond the tent. The knights went out therefore to see what was going on. A multitude of soldiers were on the ramparts looking at the place round about, which during the night had changed considerably and was still changing before their eyes. The Cossacks had not been idle since the last assault; they had made a breastwork and placed cannon in it, longer and carrying farther than any in the Polish camp; they had begun traverses, zigzags, and approaches. From a distance these embankments looked like thousands of gigantic mole-hills; the whole slope of the field was covered with them; the freshly dug earth lay black everywhere in the grass, and every place was swarming with men at work. The red caps of the Cossacks were glittering on the front ramparts.

  The prince stood on the works with Sobieski and Pshiyemski. A little below, Firlei was surveying the Cossack works through a field-glass, and said to Ostrorog,—

  “The enemy are beginning a regular siege. I see we must abandon defence in the trenches and go to the castle.”

  Prince Yeremi heard these words, and said, bending from above to the castellan: “God keep us from that, for we should be going of our own choice into a trap. Here is the place for us to live or die.”

  “That’s my opinion too, even if I had to kill a Burlai every day,” put in Zagloba. “I protest in the name of the whole army against the opinion of the castellan of Belsk.”

  “This matter does not pertain to you!” said the prince.

  “Quiet!” whispered Volodyovski, jerking him by the sleeve.

  “We will exterminate them in those hiding-places like so many moles,” said Zagloba, “and I beg your serene Highness to let me go out with the first sally. They know me already, and they will know me better.”

  “With a sally!” said the prince, and wrinkled his brow. “Wait a minute! The nights are dark in the beginning now.” Here he turned to Sobieski, Pshiyemski, and the commanders, and said: “I ask you, gentlemen, to come to counsel.”

  He left the intrenchment, and all the officers followed him.

  “For the love of God, what are you doing?” asked Volodyovski, “What does this mean? Why, you don’t know service and discipline, that you interfere in the conversation of your superiors. The prince is a mild-mannered man, but in time of war there is no joking with him.”

  “Oh, that is nothing, Pan Michael! Konyetspolski, the father, was a fierce lion, and he depended greatly on my counsels; and may the wolves eat me up to-day, if it was not for that reason that he defeated Gustavus Adolphus twice. I know how to talk with magnates. Didn’t you see now how the prince was astonished when I advised him to make a sally? If God gives a victory, whose service will it be,—whose? Will it be yours?”

  At that moment Zatsvilikhovski came up. “What’s this? They are rooting and rooting, like so many pigs!” said he, pointing to the field.

  “I wish they were pigs,” said Zagloba. “Pork sausage would be cheap, but their carrion is not fit for dogs. Today the soldiers had to dig a well in Firlei’s quarters, for the water in the eastern pond was spoiled from the bodies. Toward morning the bile burst in the dog-brothers, and they all floated. Now next Friday we cannot use fish, because the fish have eaten their flesh.”

  “True,” said Zatsvilikhovski; “I am an old soldier, but I have not seen so
many bodies, unless at Khotím, at the assault of the janissaries on our camp.”

  “You will see more of them yet, I tell you.”

  “I think that this evening, or before evening, they will move to the storm again.”

  “But I say they will leave us in peace till to-morrow.”

  Scarcely had Zagloba finished speaking, when long white puffs of smoke blossomed out on the breastwork, and balls flew over the intrenchment.

  “There!” exclaimed Zatsvilikhovski.

  “Oh, they know nothing of military art!” said Zagloba.

  Old Zatsvilikhovski was right. Hmelnitski had began a regular siege. He had closed all roads and escapes, had taken away the pasture, made approaches and breastworks, had dug zigzags near the camp, but had not abandoned assaults. He had resolved to give no rest to the besieged; to harass, to frighten, to keep them in continual sleeplessness, and press upon them till their arms should fall from their stiffened hands. In the evening, therefore, he struck upon the quarters of Vishnyevetski, with no better result than the day before, especially since the Cossacks did not advance with such alacrity. Next day firing did not cease for an instant. The zigzags were already so near that musketry fire reached the ramparts; the earthworks smoked like little volcanoes from morning till evening. It was not a general battle, but a continual fusillade. The besieged rushed out sometimes from the ramparts; then sabres, flails, scythes, and lances met in the conflict. But scarcely had a few Cossacks fallen in the ranks, when the gaps were immediately filled with new men. The soldiers had no rest for even a moment during the whole day; and when the desired sunset came, a new general assault was begun. A sally was not to be thought of.