CHAPTER XXXII.
A fierce winter covered the forests with heavy snow-clusters andicicles, and filled ravines to their edges with drifts, so that thewhole land seemed a single white plain. Great, sudden storms came, inwhich men and herds were lost under the pall of snow; roads grewmisleading and perilous: still, Pan Bogush hastened with all his powerto Yavorov to communicate Azya's great plans to the hetman as quicklyas possible. A noble of the border, reared in continual danger ofCossacks and Tartars, penetrated with the thought of perils whichthreatened the country from insurrections, from raids, from the wholepower of the Turks, he saw in those plans almost the salvation of thecountry; he believed sacredly that the hetman, held in homage by him,and by all men of the frontier, would not hesitate a moment when it wasa question of the power of the Commonwealth: hence he rode forward withjoy in his heart, in spite of snow-drifts, wrong roads, and tempests.
He dropped in at last on a Sunday, together with snow, at Yavorov, andhaving the good fortune to find Pan Sobieski at home, announced himselfstraightway, though attendants informed him that the hetman, busiednight and day with expeditions and the writing of despatches, hadbarely time to take food. But beyond expectation, the hetman gavecommand to call him at once. Therefore, after he had waited only ashort time, the old soldier bowed to the knees of his leader.
He found Pan Sobieski changed greatly, and with a face full of care;for those were well-nigh the most grievous years of his life. His namehad not thundered yet through every corner of Christendom; but the fameof a great leader and a terrible crusher of the Mussulman encircled himalready in the Commonwealth. Owing to that fame, the grand baton wasconfided to him in time, and the defence of the eastern boundary; butwith the dignity of hetman they had given him neither money nor men.Still, victory had followed his steps hitherto as faithfully as hisshadow follows a man. With a handful of troops he had won victory atPodhaytse; with a handful of troops he had passed like a flame throughthe length and the breadth of the Ukraine, rubbing into dust chambulsof many thousands, capturing insurgent cities, spreading dread andterror of the Polish name. But now there hung over the Commonwealth awar with the most terrible of the powers of that period, for it was awar with the whole Mussulman world. It was no longer a secret forSobieski that since Doroshenko had given up the Ukraine and theCossacks to the Sultan, the latter had promised to move Turkey, AsiaMinor, Arabia, and Egypt as far as the interior of Africa, to proclaima sacred war, and go in his own person to demand the new "pashalik"[22]from the Commonwealth. Destruction, like a bird of prey, was floatingover all Southern Russia, and meanwhile there was disorder in theCommonwealth; the nobles were uproarious in defence of theirincompetent king, and, assembled in armed camps, were ready for civilwar, if for any. The country, exhausted by recent conflicts andmilitary confederations, had become impoverished; envy was storming init; mutual distrust was rankling in men's hearts.
No one wished to believe that war with the Mussulman power wasimminent; and they condemned the great leader for spreading news aboutit purposely to turn men's minds from home questions. He was condemnedgreatly for this also,--that he was ready himself to call in the Turks,if only to secure victory to his adherents. They made him simply atraitor; and had it not been for the army, they would not havehesitated to impeach him.
In view of the approaching war, to which thousands of legions of wildpeople would march from the East, he was without an army,--he hadmerely a handful, so small that the Sultan's court counted moreservants; he was without money, without means of repairing the ruinedfortresses, without hope of victory, without possibility of defence,without the conviction that his death, as formerly the death ofJolkyevski, would rouse the torpid country and give birth to anavenger. That was the reason that care had settled on his forehead; andthe lordly countenance, like that of a Roman conqueror with a foreheadin laurels, bore traces of hidden pain and sleepless nights. But atsight of Bogush a kindly smile brightened the face of the hetman; heplaced his hands on the shoulders of the man inclining before him, andsaid,--
"I greet you, soldier, I greet you! I had not hoped to see you so soon;but you are the dearer to me in Yavorov. Whence do you come,--fromKamenyets?"
"No, serene, great, mighty lord hetman, I have not even been atKamenyets. I come straightway from Hreptyoff."
"What is my little soldier doing there? Is he well, and has he clearedthe wilds of Ushytsa even somewhat?"
"The wilds are so peaceful that a child might pass through them insafety. The robbers are hanged, and in these last days Azba Bey withhis whole party was cut to pieces, so that even a witness of theslaughter was not left. I arrived there on the very day of theirdestruction."
"I recognize Volodyovski: Rushchyts in Rashkoff is the only man who maycompare with him. But what do they say in the steppes? Are there freshtidings from the Danube?"
"There are, but of evil. There is to be a great muster of troops atAdrianople in the last days of winter."
"I know that already. There are no tidings now save of evil,--evil fromthe Commonwealth, evil from the Crimea and from Stambul."
"But not altogether, for I myself bring such good tidings that if Iwere a Turk or a Tartar I should surely mention a present."
"Well, then, you have fallen from heaven to me. Come, speak quickly,dispel my anxiety!"
"But if I am so frozen, your great mightiness, that the wit hasstiffened in my head?"
The hetman clapped his hands, and commanded an attendant to bring mead.After a while they brought in a mouldy decanter, and candlesticks withburning tapers, for though the hour was still early, snowy clouds hadmade the air so gloomy that outside, as well as in the house, it waslike nightfall.
The hetman poured out and drank to his guest; the latter, bowing low,emptied his glass, and said: "The first news is this, that Azya, whowas to bring back to our service the captains of the Lithuanian Tartarsand the Cheremis, is not called Mellehovich, he is a son of Tugai Bey."
"Of Tugai Bey?" asked Pan Sobieski, with amazement.
"Thus it is, your great mightiness. It has come out that PanNyenashinyets carried him away from the Crimea while a child, but losthim on the road home; and Azya, falling into possession of theNovoveskis, was reared at their house without knowing that he wasdescended from such a father."
"It was a wonder to me that he, though so young, was held in suchesteem among the Tartars. But now I understand; and the Cossacks too,even those who have remained faithful to the mother,[23] considerHmelnitski as a kind of saint, and are proud of him."
"That is just it, just it; I told Azya the same thing," said PanBogush.
"Wonderful are the ways of God," said the hetman, after a while; "oldTugai shed rivers of blood in our country, and his son is servingit,--at least he serves it faithfully so far; but now I do not knowwhether he will not wish to taste Crimean greatness."
"Now? Now he is still more faithful; and here my second tidings begin,in which it may be that strength and resource and salvation for thesuffering Commonwealth are contained. So help me God, I forgot fatigueand danger in view of these tidings, so as to let them out of my lipsat the earliest moment, and console your troubled heart."
"I am listening eagerly," said Pan Sobieski.
Bogush began to explain Azya's plans, and presented them with suchenthusiasm that he grew really eloquent. From time to time his hand,trembling from emotion, poured out a glass of mead, spilling the nobledrink over the rim; and he spoke and spoke on. Before the astonishedeyes of the grand hetman passed as it were clear pictures of thefuture; therefore thousands and tens of thousands of Tartars came forland and freedom, bringing their wives and children and their herds;therefore the astonished Cossacks, seeing the new power of theCommonwealth, bowed down to it obediently, bowed down to the king andthe hetman; hence there was rebellion in the Ukraine no longer; henceraids, destructive as fire or flood, were advancing no longer on theold roads against Russia,--but at the side of the Polish and theCossack armies moved over the me
asureless steppes, with the playing oftrumpets and the rattle of drums, chambuls of Tartars, nobles of theUkraine.
And for whole years carts after carts were advancing, and in them, inspite of the commands of Khan and Sultan, were multitudes who preferredthe black land of the Ukraine and bread to their former hungrysettlements. And the power, hostile aforetime, was moving to theservice of the Commonwealth. The Crimea became depopulated; theirformer power slipped out of the hands of the Khan and the Sultan, anddread seized them; for from the steppes, from the Ukraine, the newhetman of a new Tartar nobility looked threateningly into theireyes,--a guardian and faithful defender of the Commonwealth, therenowned son of a terrible father, young Tugai Bey.
A flush came out on the countenance of Bogush; it seemed that his ownwords bore him away, for at the end he raised both hands and cried,--
"This is what I bring! This is what that dragon's whelp has brooded outin the wild woods of Hreptyoff! All that is needed now is to give him aletter and permission from your great mightiness to spread a report inthe Crimea and on the Danube. Your great mightiness, if Tugai Bey's sonwere to do nothing except to make an uproar in the Crimea and on theDanube, to cause misunderstandings, to rouse the hydra of civil waramong the Tartars, to embroil some camps against others, and that onthe eve of conflict, I repeat, he would render a great and undyingservice to the Commonwealth."
But Pan Sobieski walked back and forth with long strides through theroom, without speaking. His lordly face was gloomy, almost terrible;he strode, and it was to be seen that he was conversing in hissoul,--unknown whether with himself or with God.
At last thou didst open some page in thy soul, grand hetman, for thougavest answer in these words to the speaker:--
"Bogush, even if I had the right to give such a letter and suchpermission, while I live I should not give them."
These words fell as heavily as if they had been of molten lead or iron,and weighed so on Bogush that for a time he was dumb, hung his head,and only after a long interval did he groan out,--
"Why, your great mightiness, why?"
"First, I will tell you, as a statesman, that the name of Tugai Bey'sson might attract, it is true, a certain number of Tartars, if land,liberty, and the rights of nobility were offered them; but not so manywould come as he and you have imagined. And, besides, it would be anact of madness to call Tartars to the Ukraine, and settle new peoplethere, when we cannot manage the Cossacks alone. You say that disputesand war will rise among them at once, that there will be a sword readyfor the Cossack neck; but who will assure you that that sword would notbe stained with Polish blood also? I have not known this Azya,hitherto; but now I perceive that the dragon of pride and ambitioninhabits his breast, therefore I ask again, who will guarantee thatthere is not in him a second Hmelnitski? He will beat the Cossacks; butif the Commonwealth shall fail to satisfy him in something, andthreaten him with justice and punishment for some act of violence, hewill join the Cossacks, summon new hordes from the East, as Hmelnitskisummoned Tugai Bey, give himself to the Sultan, as Doroshenko has done,and, instead of a new growth of power, new bloodshed and defeats willcome on us."
"Your great mightiness, the Tartars, when they have become nobles, willhold faithfully to the Commonwealth."
"Were there few of the Lithuanian Tartars and Cheremis? They werenobles a long time, and went over to the Sultan."
"Their privileges were withheld from the Lithuanian Tartars."
"But what will happen if, to begin with, the Polish nobles, as iscertain, oppose such an extension of their rights to others? With whatface, with what conscience, will you give to wild and predatory hordes,who have been destroying our country continually, the power and theright to determine the fate of that country, to choose kings, and senddeputies to the diets? Why give them such a reward? What madness hascome to the head of this Tartar, and what evil spirit seized you, myold soldier, to let yourself be so beguiled and seduced as to believein such dishonor and such an impossibility?"
Bogush dropped his eyes, and said with an uncertain voice:--
"I knew beforehand that the estates would oppose; but Azya said that ifthe Tartars were to settle with permission of your great mightiness,they would not let themselves be driven out."
"Man! Why, he threatened, he shook his sword over the Commonwealth, andyou did not see it!"
"Your great mightiness," said Bogush, in despair, "it might be arrangednot to make all the Tartars nobles, only the most considerable, andproclaim the rest free men. Even in that situation they would answerthe summons of Tugai Bey's son."
"But why is it not better to proclaim all the Cossacks free men? Cease,old soldier! I tell you that an evil spirit has taken possession ofyou."
"Your great mightiness--"
"And I say farther," here Pan Sobieski wrinkled his lionlike foreheadand his eyes gleamed, "even if everything were to happen as you say,even if our power were to increase through this action, even if warwith Turkey were to be averted, even if the nobles themselves were tocall for it, still, while this hand of mine wields a sabre and can makethe sign of the cross, never and never will I permit such a thing! Sohelp me God!"
"Why, your great mightiness?" repeated Bogush, wringing his hands.
"Because I am not only a Polish hetman, but a Christian hetman, for Istand in defence of the Cross. And even if those Cossacks were to tearthe entrails of the Commonwealth more cruelly than ever, I will not cutthe necks of a blinded but still Christian people with the swords ofPagans. For by doing so I should say 'raca' to our fathers andgrandfathers, to my own ancestors, to their ashes, to the blood andtears of the whole past Commonwealth. As God is true! if destruction iswaiting for us, if our name is to be the name of a dead and not of aliving people, let our glory remain behind and a memory of that servicewhich God pointed out to us; let people who come in after time say,when looking at those crosses and tombs: 'Here is Christianity; herethey defended the Cross against Mohammedan foulness, while there wasbreath in their breasts, while the blood was in their veins; and theydied for other nations.' This is our service, Bogush. Behold, we arethe fortress on which Christ fixed His crucifix, and you tell me, asoldier of God, nay, the commander of the fortress, to be the first toopen the gate and let in Pagans, like wolves to a sheep-fold, and givethe sheep, the flock of Jesus, to slaughter. Better for us to sufferfrom chambuls; better for us to endure rebellions; better for us to goto this terrible war; better for me and you to fall, and for the wholeCommonwealth to perish,--than to put disgrace on our name, to lose ourfame, and betray that guardianship and that service of God."
When he had said this, Pan Sobieski stood erect in all his grandeur; onhis face there was a radiance such as must have been on that of Godfreyde Bouillon when he burst in over the walls of Jerusalem, shouting,"God wills it!" Pan Bogush seemed to himself dust before those words,and Azya seemed to him dust before Pan Sobieski, and the fiery plans ofthe young Tartar grew black and became suddenly in the eyes of Bogushsomething dishonest and altogether infamous. For what could he sayafter the statement of the hetman that it was better to fall than tobetray the service of God? What argument could he bring? Therefore hedid not know, poor knight, whether to fall at the knees of the hetman,or to beat his own breast, repeating, "_Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_."
But at that moment the sound of bells was given out from theneighboring Dominican monastery.
Hearing this, Pan Sobieski said,--
"They are sounding for vespers, Bogush; let us go and commit ourselvesto God."
Pan Michael: An Historical Novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey Page 33
