CHAPTER X.
The king's party arrived at Jivyets late in the evening, and paidalmost no attention to the place, which was terrified by the recentattack of the Swedish detachment. The king did not go to the castle,which had been ravaged by the enemy and burned in part, but stopped atthe priest's house. Kmita spread the news that the party was escortingthe ambassador of the emperor, who was going from Silesia to Cracow.
Next morning they held on toward Vadovitsi, and then turnedconsiderably to one side toward Suha. From this place they were to passthrough Kjechoni to Yordanovo, thence to Novy Targ, and if it appearedthat there were no Swedish parties near Chorshtyn to go to Chorshtyn;if there were, they were to turn toward Hungary and advance onHungarian soil to Lyubovlya. The king hoped, too, that the marshal ofthe kingdom, who disposed of forces so considerable that no reigningprince had so many, would make the road safe and hasten forth to meethis sovereign. Only this could prevent, that the marshal knew not whichroad the king would take; but among the mountaineers there was no lackof trusty men ready to bear word to the marshal. There was no need evenof confiding the secret to them, for they went willingly when told thatit was a question of serving the king. These people, though poor andhalf wild, tilling little or not at all an ungrateful soil, living bytheir herds, pious, and hating heretics, were, in truth, given heartand soul to the sovereign. They were the first to seize their axes andmove from the mountains when news of the taking of Cracow spreadthrough the country, and especially when news came of the siege ofChenstohova, to which pious women were accustomed to go on pilgrimages.General Douglas, a well-known warrior, furnished with cannon andmuskets, scattered them, it is true, on the plains, to which they werenot accustomed; but the Swedes only with the greatest caution enteredtheir special districts, in which it was not easy to reach them, andeasy to suffer disaster,--so that some smaller divisions, havingneedlessly entered this labyrinth of mountains, were lost.
And now news of the king's passage with an army had already done itsown, for all had sprung up as one man to defend him and accompany himwith their axes, even to the end of the world. Yan Kazimir might, if hehad only disclosed who he was, have surrounded himself in a short timewith thousands of half-wild "householders;" but he thought justly thatin such an event the news would be carried about everywhere by all thewhirlwinds through the whole region, and that the Swedes might send outnumerous troops to meet him, therefore he chose to travel unknown evento the mountaineers.
But in all places trusty guides were found, to whom it was enough tosay that they were conducting bishops and lords who desired to preservethemselves from Swedish hands. They were led, therefore, among snows,cliffs, and whirlwinds, and over places so inaccessible that you wouldhave said: "A bird cannot fly through them."
More than once the king and the dignitaries had clouds below them, andwhen there were not clouds their glances passed over a shorelessexpanse, covered with white snows, an expanse seemingly as wide as thewhole country was wide; more than once they entered mountain throats,almost dark, covered with snow, in which perhaps only a wild beastmight have its lair. But they avoided places accessible to the enemy,shortening the road; and it happened that a settlement, at which theyexpected to arrive in half a day, appeared suddenly under their feet,and in it they awaited rest and hospitality, though in a smoky hut anda sooty room.
The king was in continual good humor; he gave courage to others toendure the excessive toil, and he guaranteed that by such roads theywould surely reach Lyubovlya as safely as unexpectedly.
"The marshal does not expect that we shall fall on his shoulders!"repeated the king, frequently.
"What was the return of Xenophon to our journey among the clouds?"asked the nuncio.
"The higher we rise, the lower will Swedish fortune fall," answered theking.
They arrived at Novy Targ. It seemed that all danger was passed; stillthe mountaineers declared that Swedish troops were moving about nearChorshtyn and in the neighborhood. The king supposed that they might bethe marshal's German cavalry, of which he had two regiments, or theymight be his own dragoons sent in advance and mistaken for the enemy'sscouts. Since in Chorshtyn the bishop of Cracow had a garrison,opinions were divided in the royal party. Some wished to go by the roadto Chorshtyn, and then pass along the boundary to Spij; others advisedto turn straight to Hungary, which came up in wedge-form to Novy Targ,and go over heights and through passes, taking guides everywhere whoknew the most dangerous places.
This last opinion prevailed, for in that way meeting with the Swedesbecame almost impossible; and besides this "eagle" road over theprecipices and through the clouds gave pleasure to the king.
They passed then from Novy Targ somewhat to the south and west, on theright hand of the Byaly Dunayets. The road at first lay through aregion rather open and spacious, but as they advanced the mountainsbegan to run together and the valleys to contract. They went alongroads over which horses could barely advance. At times the riders hadto dismount and lead; and more than once the beasts resisted, pointingtheir ears and stretching their distended and steaming nostrils forwardtoward precipices, from the depths of which death seemed to gazeupward.
The mountaineers, accustomed to precipices, frequently considered roadsgood on which the heads of unaccustomed men turned and their ears rang.At last they entered a kind of rocky chasm long, straight, and sonarrow that three men could barely ride abreast in it. Two cliffsbounded it on the right side and the left. At places however the edgesinclined, forming slopes less steep, covered with piles of snowbordered on the edges with dark pine-trees. Winds blew away the snowimmediately from the bottom of the pass, and the hoofs of horsesgritted everywhere on a stony road. But at that moment the wind was notblowing, and such silence reigned that there was a ringing in the ears.Above where between the woody edges a blue belt of sky was visible,black flocks of birds flew past from time to time, shaking their wingsand screaming.
The king's party halted for rest. Clouds of steam rose from the horses,and the men too were tired.
"Is this Poland or Hungary?" inquired, after a time, the king of aguide.
"This is Poland."
"But why do we not turn directly to Hungary?"
"Because it is impossible. At some distance this pass turns, beyond theturn is a cliff, beyond that we come out on the high-road, turn, thengo through one more pass, and there the Hungarian country begins."
"Then I see it would have been better to go by the highway at first,"said the king.
"Quiet!" cried the mountaineer, quickly. And springing to the cliff heput his ear to it.
All fixed their eyes on him; his face changed in a moment, and he said:"Beyond the turn troops are coming from the water-fall! For God's sake!Are they not Swedes?"
"Where? How? What?" men began to ask on every side. "We hear nothing."
"No, for snow is lying on the sides. By God's wounds, they are near!they will be here straightway!"
"Maybe they are the marshal's troops," said the king.
In one moment Kmita urged his horse forward. "I will go and see!" saidhe.
The Kyemliches moved that instant after him, like hunting-dogs in achase; but barely had they stirred from their places when the turn ofthe pass, about a hundred yards distant, was made black by men andhorses. Kmita looked at them, and the soul quivered within him fromterror.
Swedes were advancing.
They were so near that it was impossible to retreat, especially sincethe king's party had wearied horses. It only remained to break through,to perish, or to go into captivity. The unterrified king understoodthis in a flash; therefore he seized the hilt of his sword.
"Cover the king and retreat!" cried Kmita.
Tyzenhauz with twenty men pushed forward in the twinkle of an eye; butKmita instead of joining them moved on at a sharp trot against theSwedes.
He wore the Swedish dress, the same in which he disguised himself whengoing out from the cloister. Seeing a horseman coming toward them insuc
h a dress, the Swedes thought perhaps this was some party of theirown belonging to the King of Sweden; they did not hasten their pace,but the captain commanding pushed out beyond the first three.
"What people are you?" asked he in Swedish, looking at the threateningand pale face of the young man approaching.
Kmita rode up to him so closely that their knees almost touched, andwithout speaking a word fired from a pistol directly into his ear.
A shout of terror was rent from the breasts of the Swedish cavalry; butstill louder thundered the voice of Pan Andrei, "Strike!"
And like a rock torn from a cliff rolling down, crushing everything inits course, so did he fall on the first rank, bearing death anddestruction. The two young Kyemliches, like two bears, sprang after himinto the whirl. The clatter of sabres on mail and helmets was heard,like the sound of hammers, and was followed straightway by outcries andgroans.
It seemed at the first moment to the astonished Swedes that threegiants had fallen upon them in that wild mountain pass. The first threepushed back confused in the presence of the terrible man, and when thesucceeding ones had extricated themselves from behind the bend of thepass, those in the rear were thrown back and confused. The horses fellto biting and kicking. The soldiers in the remoter ranks were not ableto shoot, nor come to the assistance of those in front, who perishedwithout aid under the blows of the three giants. In vain did they fall,in vain did they present their weapon points; here sabres werebreaking, there men and horses fell. Kmita urged his horse till hishoofs were hanging above the heads of the steeds of his opponents, hewas raging himself, cutting and thrusting. The blood rushed to hisface, and from his eyes fire flashed. All thoughts were quenched in himsave one,--he might perish, but he must detain the Swedes. That thoughtturned in him to a species of wild ecstasy; therefore his powers weretrebled, his movements became like those of a leopard, mad, and swiftas lightning. With blows of his sabre, which were blows beyond human,he crushed men as a thunderbolt crushes young trees; the twinKyemliches followed, and the old man, standing a trifle in the rear,thrust his rapier out every moment between his sons, as a serpentthrusts out its bloody tongue.
Meanwhile around the king there rose confusion. The nuncio, as atJivyets, seized the reins of his horse, and on the other side thebishop of Cracow pulled back the steed with all his force; but the kingspurred him till he stood on his hind legs.
"Let me go!" cried the king. "As God lives! We shall pass through theenemy!"
"My Lord, think of the country!" cried the bishop of Cracow.
The king was unable to tear himself from their hands, especially sinceyoung Tyzenhauz with all his men closed the road. Tyzenhauz did not goto help Kmita; he sacrificed him, he wanted only to save the king.
"By the passion of our Lord!" cried he, in despair, "those men willperish immediately! Gracious Lord, save yourself while there is time! Iwill hold them here yet awhile!"
But the stubbornness of the king when once roused reckoned with nothingand no man. Yan Kazimir spurred his horse still more violently, andinstead of retreating pushed forward.
But time passed, and each moment might bring with it final destruction.
"I will die on my own soil! Let me go!" cried the king.
Fortunately, against Kmita and the Kyemliches, by reason of thenarrowness of the pass, only a small number of men could act at once,consequently they were able to hold out long. But gradually even theirpowers began to be exhausted. A number of times the rapiers of theSwedes had struck Kmita's body, and his blood began to flow. His eyeswere veiled as it were by a mist. The breath halted in his breast. Hefelt the approach of death; therefore he wanted only to sell his lifedearly. "Even one more!" repeated he to himself, and he sent down hissteel blade on the head or the shoulder of the nearest horseman, andagain he turned to another; but evidently the Swedes felt ashamed,after the first moment of confusion and fear, that four men were ableto detain them so long, and they crowded forward with fury; soon thevery weight of men and horses drove back the four men, and each momentmore swiftly and strongly.
With that Kmita's horse fell, and the torrent covered the rider.
The Kyemliches struggled still for a time, like swimmers who seeingthat they are drowning make efforts to keep their heads above the whirlof the sea, but soon they also fell. Then the Swedes moved on like awhirlwind toward the party of the king.
Tyzenhauz with his men sprang against them, and struck them in suchfashion that the sound was heard through the mountains.
But what could that handful of men, led by Tyzenhauz, do against adetachment of nearly three hundred strong?
There was no doubt that for the king and his party the fatal hour ofdeath or captivity must come.
Yan Kazimir, preferring evidently the first to the second, freedfinally the reins from the hands of the bishops, and pushed forwardquickly toward Tyzenhauz. In an instant he halted as if fixed to theearth.
Something uncommon had happened. To spectators it seemed as though themountains themselves were coming to the aid of the rightful king.
Behold on a sudden the edges of the pass quivered as if the earth weremoving from its foundations, as if the pines on the mountain desired totake part in the battle; and logs of wood, blocks of snow and ice,stones, fragments of cliff's, began to roll down with a terrible crashand roar on the ranks of the Swedes crowded in the pass. At the sametime an unearthly howl was heard on each side of the narrow place.
Below in the ranks began seething which passed human belief. It seemedto the Swedes that the mountains were falling and covering them. Shoutsrose, the lamentations of crushed men, despairing cries for assistance,the whining of horses, the bite and terrible sound of fragments ofcliffs on armor.
At last men and horses formed one mass quivering convulsively, crushed,groaning, despairing, and dreadful. But the stones and pieces ofcliff's ground them continually, rolling without mercy on the nowformless masses, the bodies of horses and men.
"The mountaineers! the mountaineers!" shouted men in the retinue of theking.
"With axes at the dog-brothers!" called voices from the mountain.
And that very moment from both rocky edges appeared long-haired heads,covered with round fur caps, and after them came out bodies, andseveral hundred strange forms began to let themselves down on theslopes of the snow.
Dark and white rags floating above their shoulders gave them theappearance of some kind of awful birds of prey. They pushed down in thetwinkle of an eye; the sound of their axes emphasized their wildominous shouting and the groans of the Swedes.
The king himself tried to restrain the slaughter; some horsemen, stillliving, threw themselves on their knees, and raising their defencelesshands, begged for their lives. Nothing availed, nothing could stay thevengeful axes. A quarter of an hour later there was not one man livingamong the Swedes in the pass.
After that the bloody mountaineers began to hurry toward the escort ofthe king.
The nuncio looked with astonishment on those people, strange to him,large, sturdy, covered partly with sheepskin, sprinkled with blood, andshaking their still steaming axes.
But at sight of the bishops they uncovered their heads. Many of themfell on their knees in the snow.
The bishop of Cracow raising his tearful face toward heaven said,"Behold the assistance of God, behold Providence, which watches overthe majesty of the king." Then turning to the mountaineers, he asked,"Men, who are you?"
"We are of this place," answered voices from the crowd.
"Do you know whom you have come to assist? This is your king and yourlord, whom you have saved."
At these words a shout rose in the crowd. "The king! the king! Jesus,Mary! the king!" And the joyful mountaineers began to throng and crowdaround Yan Kazimir. With weeping they fell to him from every side; withweeping, they kissed his feet, his stirrups, even the hoofs of hishorse. Such excitement reigned, such shouting, such weeping that thebishops from fear for the king's person were forced to restrain theexcessive enthusiasm.
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And the king was in the midst of a faithful people, like a shepherdamong sheep, and great tears were flowing down his face. Then hiscountenance became bright, as if some sudden change had taken place inhis soul, as if a new, great thought from heaven by birth had flashedinto his mind, and he indicated with his hand that he wished to speak;and when there was silence he said with a voice so loud that the wholemultitude heard him,--
"O God, Thou who hast saved me by the hands of simple people, I swearby the suffering and death of Thy Son to be a father to them from thismoment forward."
"Amen!" responded the bishops.
For a certain time a solemn silence reigned, then a new burst of joy.They inquired of the mountaineers whence they had come into the passes,and in what way they had appeared to rescue the king. It turned outthat considerable parties of Swedes had been wandering about Chorshtyn,and, not capturing the castle itself, they seemed to seek some one andto wait. The mountaineers too had heard of a battle which those partieshad delivered against troops among whom it was said that the kinghimself was advancing. Then they determined to push the Swedes into anambush, and sending to them deceitful guides, they lured them into thepass.
"We saw," said the mountaineers, "how those four horsemen attackedthose dogs; we wanted to assist the four horsemen, but were afraid tofall upon the dog-brothers too soon!"
Here the king seized his head. "Mother of Thy only Son!" cried he,"find Babinich for me! Let us give him at least a funeral! And he isthe man who was considered a traitor, the one who first shed his ownblood for us."
"It was I who accused him. Gracious Lord!" said Tyzenhauz.
"Find him, find him!" cried the king. "I will not leave here till Ilook upon his face and put my blessing on him."
The soldiers and the mountaineers sprang to the place of the firststruggle, and soon they removed from the pile of dead horses and menPan Andrei. His face was pale, all bespattered with blood, which washanging in large stiffened drops on his mustaches; his eyes wereclosed; his armor was bent from the blows of swords and horses' hoofs.But that armor had saved him from being crushed, and to the soldier whoraised him it seemed as though he heard a low groan.
"As God is true, he is alive!" cried he.
"Remove his armor," called others.
They cut the straps quickly. Kmita breathed more deeply.
"He is breathing, he is breathing! He is alive!" repeated a number ofvoices.
But he lay a certain time motionless; then he opened his eyes. At thattime one of the soldiers poured a little gorailka into his mouth;others raised him by the armpits.
Now the king, to whose hearing the cry repeated by several voices hadcome, rode up in haste. The soldiers drew into his presence Pan Andrei,who was hanging on them and slipping from their hands to the ground.Still, at sight of the king consciousness returned to him for a moment,a smile almost childlike lighted his face, and his pale lips whisperedclearly,--
"My lord, my king, is alive--is free." And tears shone on hiseyelashes.
"Babinich, Babinich! with what can I reward you?" cried the king.
"I am not Babinich; I am Kmita!" whispered the knight.
When he had said this he hung like a corpse in the arms of thesoldiers.
The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 2 (of 2) Page 10
