The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  The plan of blowing up the cloister by means of mines came also to nothing. Miners brought in previously from Olkush split, it is true, the rock, and approached on a diagonal to the cloister; but work progressed slowly. The workmen, in spite of every precaution, fell frequently from the guns of the church, and labored unwillingly. Many of them preferred to die rather than aid in the destruction of a sacred place.

  Miller felt a daily increasing opposition. The frost took away the remnant of courage from his unwilling troops, among whom terror was spreading from day to day with a belief that the capture of the cloister did not lie within human power.

  Finally Miller himself began to lose hope, and after the bursting of the gun he was simply in despair; a feeling of helplessness and impotence took possession of him. Next morning he called a council, but he called it with the secret wish to hear from officers encouragement to abandon the fortress.

  They began to assemble, all wearied and gloomy. In silence they took their places around a table in an enormous and cold room, in which the steam from their breaths stood before their faces, and they looked from behind it as from behind a cloud. Each one felt in his soul exhaustion and weariness; each one said to himself: “There is no counsel to give save one, which it is better for no man to be the first to give.” All waited for what Miller would say. He ordered first of all to bring plenty of heated wine, hoping that under the influence of warm drink it would be easier to obtain a real thought from those silent figures, and encouragement to retreat from the fortress.

  At last, when he supposed that the wine had produced its effect, he spoke in the following words—

  “Have you noticed, gentlemen, that none of the Polish colonels have come to this council, though I summoned them all?”

  “It is known of course to your worthiness that servants of the Polish squadron have, while fishing, found silver belonging to the cloister, and that they fought for it with our soldiers. More than ten men have been cut down.”

  “I know; I succeeded in snatching a part of that silver from their hands, indeed the greater part. It is here now, and I am thinking what to do with it.”

  “This is surely the cause of the anger of the Polish colonels. They say that if the Poles found the silver, it belongs to the Poles.”

  “That’s a reason!” cried Count Veyhard.

  “For my mind, it is a strong reason,” said Sadovski; “and I think that if you had found the silver you would not feel bound to divide it, not only with the Poles, but even with me, a Cheh.”

  “First of all, my dear sir, I do not share your good will for the enemies of our king,” answered the count, with a frown.

  “But we, thanks to you, must share with you shame and disgrace, not being able to succeed against a fortress to which you have brought us.”

  “Then have you lost all hope?”

  “But have you any yourself to give away?”

  “Just as if you knew; and I think that these gentlemen share more willingly with me in my hope, than with you in your fear.”

  “Do you make me a coward, Count Veyhard?”

  “I do not ascribe to you more courage than you show.”

  “And I ascribe to you less.”

  “But I,” said Miller, who for some time had looked on the count with dislike as the instigator of the ill-starred undertaking, “shall have the silver sent to the cloister. Perhaps kindness and graciousness will do more with these surly monks than balls and cannon. Let them understand that we wish to possess the fortress, not their treasures.”

  The officers looked on Miller with wonder, so little accustomed were they to magnanimity from him. At last Sadovski said,—

  “Nothing better could be done, for it will close at once the mouths of the Polish colonels who lay claim to the silver. In the fortress it will surely make a good impression.”

  “The death of that Kmita will make the best impression,” answered Count Veyhard. “I hope that Kuklinovski has already torn him out of his skin.”

  “I think that he is no longer alive,” said Miller. “But that name reminds me of our loss, which nothing can make good. That was the greatest gun in the whole artillery of his grace. I do not hide from you, gentlemen, that all my hopes were placed on it. The breach was already made, terror was spreading in the fortress. A couple of days longer and we should have moved to a storm. Now all our labor is useless, all our exertions vain. They will repair the wall in one day. And the guns which we have now are no better than those of the fortress, and can be easily dismounted. No larger ones can be had anywhere, for even Marshal Wittemberg hasn’t them. The more I ponder over it, the more the disaster seems dreadful. And to think that one man did this,—one dog! one Satan! I shall go mad! To all the horned devils!”

  Here Miller struck the table with his fist, for unrestrained anger had seized him, the more desperately because he was powerless. After a while he cried,—

  “But what will the king say when he hears of this loss?” After a while he added: “And what shall we do? We cannot gnaw away that cliff with our teeth. Would that the plague might strike those who persuaded me to come to this fortress!”

  Having said this, he took a crystal goblet, and in his excitement hurled it to the floor so that the crystal was broken into small bits.

  This unbecoming frenzy, more befitting a peasant than a warrior holding such a high office, turned all hearts from him, and soured good-humor completely.

  “Give counsel, gentlemen!” cried Miller.

  “It is possible to counsel, but only in calmness,” answered the Prince of Hesse.

  Miller began to puff and blow out his anger through his nostrils. After a time he grew calm, and passing his eyes over those present as if encouraging them with a glance, he said,—

  “I ask your pardon, gentlemen, but my anger is not strange. I will not mention those places which, when I had taken command after Torstenson, I captured, for I do not wish, in view of the present disaster, to boast of past fortune. All that is done at this fortress simply passes reason. But still it is necessary to take counsel. For that purpose I have summoned you. Deliberate, then, and what the majority of us determine at this council will be done.”

  “Let your worthiness give us the subject for deliberation,” said the Prince of Hesse. “Have we to deliberate only concerning the capture of the fortress, or also concerning this, whether it is better to withdraw?”

  Miller did not wish to put the question so clearly, or at least he did not wish the “either—or,” to come first from his mouth; therefore he said,—

  “Let each speak clearly what he thinks. It should be a question for us of the profit and praise of the king.”

  But none of the officers wished more than Miller to appear first with the proposition to retreat, therefore there was silence again.

  “Pan Sadovski,” said Miller after a while, in a voice which he tried to make agreeable and kind, “you say what you think more sincerely than others, for your reputation insures you against all suspicion.”

  “I think, General,” answered the colonel, “that Kmita was one of the greatest soldiers of this age, and that our position is desperate.”

  “But you were in favor of withdrawing from the fortress?”

  “With permission of your worthiness, I was only in favor of not beginning the siege. That is a thing quite different.”

  “Then what do you advise now?”

  “Now I give the floor to Count Veyhard.”

  Miller swore like a pagan.

  “Count Veyhard will answer for this unfortunate affair,” said he.

  “My counsels have not all been carried out,” answered the count, insolently. “I can boldly cast responsibility from myself. There were men who with a wonderful, in truth an inexplicable, good-will for the priests, dissuaded his worthiness from all severe measures. My advice was to hang those envoy pries
ts, and I am convinced that if this had been done terror would have opened to us before this time the gates of that hen-house.”

  Here the count looked at Sadovski; but before the latter had answered, the Prince of Hesse interfered: “Count, do not call that fortress a hen-house, for the more you decrease its importance the more you increase our shame.”

  “Nevertheless I advised to hang the envoys. Terror and always terror, that is what I repeated from morning till night; but Pan Sadovski threatened resignation, and the priests went unharmed.”

  “Go, Count, to-day to the fortress,” answered Sadovski, “blow up with powder their greatest gun as Kmita did ours, and I guarantee that, that will spread more terror than a murderous execution of envoys.”

  The count turned directly to Miller: “Your worthiness I thought we had come here for counsel and not for amusement.”

  “Have you an answer to baseless reproaches?” asked Miller.

  “I have, in spite of the joyousness of these gentlemen, who might save their humor for better times.”

  “Oh, son of Laertes, famous for stratagems!” exclaimed the Prince of Hesse.

  “Gentlemen,” answered the count, “it is universally known that not Minerva but Mars is your guardian deity; but since Mars has not favored you, and you have renounced your right of speech, let me speak.”

  “The mountain is beginning to groan, and soon we shall see the small tail of a mouse,” said Sadovski.

  “I ask for silence!” said Miller, severely. “Speak, Count, but keep in mind that up to this moment your counsels have given bitter fruit.”

  “Which, though it is winter, we must eat like mouldy biscuits,” put in the Prince of Hesse.

  “This explains why your princely highness drinks so much wine,” said Count Veyhard; “and though it does not take the place of native wit, it helps you to a happy digestion of even disgrace. But no matter! I know well that there is a party in the fortress which is long desirous of surrender, and that only our weakness on one side and the superhuman stubbornness of the prior on the other keep it in check. New terror will give this party new power; for this purpose we should show that we make no account of the loss of the gun, and storm the more vigorously.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Even if it were all, I think that such counsel is more in accordance with the honor of Swedish soldiers than barren jests at cups, or than sleeping after drinking-bouts. But that is not all. We should spread the report among our soldiers, and especially among the Poles, that the men at work now making a mine have discovered the old underground passage leading to the cloister and the church.”

  “That is good counsel,” said Miller.

  “When this report is spread among the soldiers and the Poles, the Poles themselves will persuade the monks to surrender, for it is a question with them as with the monks, that that nest of superstitions should remain intact.”

  “For a Catholic that is not bad!” muttered Sadovski.

  “If he served the Turks he would call Rome a nest of superstitions,” said the Prince of Hesse.

  “Then, beyond doubt, the Poles will send envoys to the priests,” continued Count Veyhard,—"that party in the cloister, which is long anxious for surrender will renew its efforts under the influence of fear; and who knows but its members will force the prior and the stubborn to open the gates?”

  “The city of Priam will perish through the cunning of the divine son of Laertes,” declaimed the Prince of Hesse.

  “As God lives, a real Trojan history, and he thinks he has invented something new!” said Sadovski.

  But the advice pleased Miller, for in very truth it was not bad. The party which the count spoke of existed really in the cloister. Even some priests of weaker soul belonged to it. Besides, fear might extend among the garrison, including even those who so far were ready to defend it to the last drop of blood.

  “Let us try, let us try!” said Miller, who like a drowning man seized every plank, and from despair passed easily to hope. “But will Kuklinovski or Zbrojek agree to go again as envoys to the cloister, or will they believe in that passage, and will they inform the priests of it?”

  “In every case Kuklinovski will agree,” answered the count; “but it is better that he should believe really in the existence of the passage.”

  At that moment they heard the tramp of a horse in front of the quarters.

  “There, Pan Zbrojek has come!” said the Prince of Hesse, looking through the window.

  A moment later spurs rattled, and Zbrojek entered, or rather rushed into the room. His face was pale, excited, and before the officers could ask the cause of his excitement the colonel cried,—

  “Kuklinovski is no longer living!”

  “How? What do you say? What has happened?” exclaimed Miller.

  “Let me catch breath,” said Zbrojek, “for what I have seen passes imagination.”

  “Talk more quickly. Has he been murdered?” cried all.

  “By Kmita,” answered Zbrojek.

  The officers all sprang from their seats, and began to look at Zbrojek as at a madman; and he, while blowing in quick succession bunches of steam from his nostrils, said,—

  “If I had not seen I should not have believed, for that is not a human power. Kuklinovski is not living, three soldiers are killed, and of Kmita not a trace. I know that he was a terrible man. His reputation is known in the whole country. But for him, a prisoner and bound, not only to free himself, but to kill the soldiers and torture Kuklinovski to death,—that a man could not do, only a devil!”

  “Nothing like that has ever happened; that’s impossible of belief!” whispered Sadovski.

  “That Kmita has shown what he can do,” said the Prince of Hesse. “We did not believe the Poles yesterday when they told us what kind of bird he was; we thought they were telling big stories, as is usual with them.”

  “Enough to drive a man mad,” said the count.

  Miller seized his head with his hands, and said nothing. When at last he raised his eyes, flashes of wrath were crossing in them with flashes of suspicion.

  “Pan Zbrojek,” said he, “though he were Satan and not a man, he could not do this without some treason, without assistance. Kmita had his admirers here; Kuklinovski his enemies, and you belong to the number.”

  Zbrojek was in the full sense of the word an insolent soldier; therefore when he heard an accusation directed against himself, he grew still paler, sprang from his place, approached Miller, and halting in front of him looked him straight in the eyes.

  “Does your worthiness suspect me?” inquired he.

  A very oppressive moment followed. The officers present had not the slightest doubt were Miller to give an affirmative answer something would follow terrible and unparalled in the history of camps. All hands rested on their rapier hilts. Sadovski even drew his weapon altogether.

  But at that moment the officers saw before the window a yard filled with Polish horsemen. Probably they also had come with news of Kuklinovski, but in case of collision they would stand beyond doubt on Zbrojek’s side. Miller too saw them, and though the paleness of rage had come on his face, still he restrained himself, and feigning to see no challenge in Zbrojek’s action, he answered in a voice which he strove to make natural,—

  “Tell in detail how it happened.”

  Zbrojek stood for a time yet with nostrils distended, but he too remembered himself; and then his thoughts turned in another direction, for his comrades, who had just ridden up, entered the room.

  “Kuklinovski is murdered!” repeated they, one after another. “Kuklinovski is killed! His regiment will scatter! His soldiers are going wild!”

  “Gentlemen, permit Pan Zbrojek to speak; he brought the news first,” cried Miller.

  After a while there was silence, and Zbrojek spoke as follows,—

  “It is known to
you, gentlemen, that at the last council I challenged Kuklinovski on the word of a cavalier. I was an admirer of Kmita, it is true; but even you, though his enemies, must acknowledge that no common man could have done such a deed as bursting that cannon. It behooves us to esteem daring even in an enemy; therefore I offered him my hand, but he refused his, and called me a traitor. Then I thought to myself, ‘Let Kuklinovski do what he likes with him.’ My only other thought was this: ‘If Kuklinovski acts against knightly honor in dealing with Kmita, the disgrace of his deed must not fall on all Poles, and among others on me.’ For that very reason I wished surely to fight with Kuklinovski, and this morning taking two comrades, I set out for his camp. We come to his quarters; they say there, ‘He is not at home.’ I send to this place,—he is not here. At his quarters they tell us, ‘He has not returned the whole night.’ But they are not alarmed, for they think that he has remained with your worthiness. At last one soldier says, ‘Last evening he went to that little barn in the field with Kmita, whom he was going to burn there.’ I ride to the barn; the doors are wide open. I enter; I see inside a naked body hanging from a beam. ‘That is Kmita,’ thought I; but when my eyes have grown used to the darkness, I see that the body is some thin and bony one, and Kmita looked like a Hercules. It is a wonder to me that he could shrink so much in one night. I draw near—Kuklinovski!”