The nobles mounted their horses; the voevodas hurried along the ranks, giving contradictory commands till Vladyslav Skorashevski took everything in hand; and when he had established order he rode out at the head of a few hundred volunteers to try skirmishing beyond the river and accustom the men to look at the enemy.
The cavalry went with him willingly enough, for skirmishing consisted generally of struggles carried on by small groups or singly, and such struggles the nobles trained to sword exercise did not fear at all. They went out therefore beyond the river, and stood before the enemy, who approached nearer and nearer, and blackened with a long line the horizon, as if a grove had grown freshly from the ground. Regiments of cavalry and infantry deployed, occupying more and more space.
The nobles expected that skirmishers on horseback might rush against them at any moment. So far they were not to be seen; but on the low hills a few hundred yards distant small groups halted, in which were to be seen men and horses, and they began to turn around on the place. Seeing this, Skorashevski commanded without delay, “To the left! to the rear!”
But the voice of command had not yet ceased to sound when on the hills long white curls of smoke bloomed forth, and as it were birds of some kind flew past with a whistle among the nobles; then a report shook the air, and at the same moment were heard cries and groans of a few wounded.
“Halt!” cried Skorashevski.
The birds flew past a second and a third time; again groans accompanied the whistle. The nobles did not listen to the command of the chief, but retreated at increased speed, shouting, and calling for the aid of heaven. Then the division scattered, in the twinkle of an eye, over the plain, and rushed on a gallop to the camp. Skorashevski was cursing, but that did no good.
Wittemberg, having dispersed the skirmishers so easily pushed on farther, till at last he stood in front of Uistsie, straight before the trenches defended by the nobles of Kalish. The Polish guns began to play, but at first no answer was made from the Swedish side. The smoke fell away quietly in the clear air in long streaks stretching between the armies, and in the spaces between them the nobles saw the Swedish regiments, infantry and cavalry, deploying with terrible coolness as if certain of victory.
On the hills the cannon were fixed, trenches raised; in a word, the enemy came into order without paying the least attention to the balls which, without reaching them, merely scattered sand and earth on the men working in the trenches.
Pan Skshetuski led out once more two squadrons of the men of Kalish, wishing by a bold attack to confuse the Swedes. But they did not go willingly; the division fell at once into a disorderly crowd, for when the most daring urged their horses forward the most cowardly held theirs back on purpose. Two regiments of cavalry sent by Wittemberg drove the nobles from the field after a short struggle, and pursued them to the camp. Now dusk came, and put an end to the bloodless strife.
There was firing from cannon till night, when firing ceased; but such a tumult rose in the Polish camp that it was heard on the other bank of the Notets. It rose first for the reason that a few hundred of the general militia tried to slip away in the darkness. Others, seeing this, began to threaten and detain them. Sabres were drawn. The words “Either all or none” flew again from mouth to mouth. At every moment it seemed most likely that all would go. Great dissatisfaction burst out against the leaders: “They sent us with naked breasts against cannon,” cried the militia.
They were enraged in like degree against Wittemberg, because without regard to the customs of war he had not sent skirmishers against skirmishers, but had ordered to fire on them unexpectedly from cannon. “Every one will do for himself what is best,” said they; “but it is the custom of a swinish people not to meet face to face.” Others were in open despair. “They will smoke us out of this place like badgers out of a hole,” said they. “The camp is badly planned, the trenches are badly made, the place is not fitted for defence.” From time to time voices were heard: “Save yourselves, brothers!” Still others cried: “Treason! treason!”
That was a terrible night: confusion and relaxation increased every moment; no one listened to commands. The voevodas lost their heads, and did not even try to restore order; and the imbecility of the general militia appeared as clearly as on the palm of the hand. Wittemberg might have taken the camp by assault on that night with the greatest ease.
Dawn came. The day broke pale, cloudy, and lighted a chaotic gathering of people fallen in courage, lamenting, and the greater number drunk, more ready for shame than for battle. To complete the misfortune, the Swedes had crossed the Notets at Dzyembovo and surrounded the Polish camp.
At that side there were scarcely any trenches, and there was nothing from behind which they could defend themselves. They should have raised breastworks without delay. Skorashevski and Skshetuski had implored to have this done, but no one would listen to anything.
The leaders and the nobles had one word on their lips, “Negotiate!” Men were sent out to parley. In answer there came from the Swedish camp a brilliant party, at the head of which rode Radzeyovski and General Wirtz, both with green branches.
They rode to the house in which the voevoda of Poznan was living; but on the way Radzeyovski stopped amid the crowd of nobles, bowed with the branch, with his hat, laughed, greeted his acquaintances, and said in a piercing voice, —
“Gracious gentlemen, dearest brothers, be not alarmed! Not as enemies do we come. On you it depends whether a drop of blood more will be shed. If you wish instead of a tyrant who is encroaching on your liberties, who is planning for absolute power, who has brought the country to final destruction, — if you wish, I repeat, a good ruler, a noble one, a warrior of such boundless glory that at bare mention of his name all the enemies of the Commonwealth will flee, — give yourselves under the protection of the most serene Karl Gustav. Gracious gentlemen, dearest brothers, behold, I bring to you the guarantee of all your liberties, of your freedom, of your religion. On yourselves your salvation depends. Gracious gentlemen, the most serene Swedish king undertakes to quell the Cossack rebellion, to finish the war in Lithuania; and only he can do that. Take pity on the unfortunate country if you have no pity on yourselves.”
Here the voice of the traitor quivered as if stopped by tears. The nobles listened with astonishment; here and there scattered voices cried, “Vivat Radzeyovski, our vice-chancellor!” He rode farther, and again bowed to new throngs, and again was heard his trumpet-like voice: “Gracious gentlemen, dearest brothers!” And at last he and Wirtz with the whole retinue vanished in the house of the voevoda of Poznan.
The nobles crowded so closely before the house that it would have been possible to ride on their heads, for they felt and understood that there in that house men were deciding the question not only of them but of the whole country. The servants of the voevodas, in scarlet colors, came out and began to invite the more important personages to the council. They entered quickly, and after them burst in a few of the smaller; but the rest remained at the door, they pressed to the windows, put their ears even to the walls.
A deep silence reigned in the throng. Those standing nearest the windows heard from time to time the sound of shrill voices from within the chamber, as it were the echo of quarrels, disputes, and fights. Hour followed hour, and no end to the council.
Suddenly the doors wore thrown open with a crash, and out burst Vladyslav Skorashevski. Those present pushed back in astonishment. That man, usually so calm and mild, of whom it was said that wounds might be healed under his hand, had that moment a terrible face. His eyes were red, his look wild, his clothing torn open on his breast; both hands were grasping his hair, and he rushed out like a thunderbolt among the nobles, and cried with a piercing voice, —
“Treason! murder! shame! We are Sweden now, and Poland no longer!”
He began to roar with an awful voice, with a spasmodic cry, and to tear his hair like a man who is losing his reason. A silence of the grave reigned all around. A certain fearful forebodin
g seized all hearts.
Skorashevski sprang away quickly, began to run among the nobles and cry with a voice of the greatest despair: “To arms, to arms, whoso believes in God! To arms, to arms!”
Then certain murmurs began to fly through the throngs, — certain momentary whispers, sudden and broken, like the first beatings of the wind before a storm. Hearts hesitated, minds hesitated, and in that universal distraction of feelings the tragic voice was calling continually, “To arms, to arms!”
Soon two other voices joined his, — those of Pyotr Skorashevski and Stanislav Shshetuski. After them ran up Klodzinski, the gallant captain of the district of Pozpan. An increasing circle of nobles began to surround them. A threatening murmur was heard round about; flames ran over the faces and shot out of the eyes; sabres rattled. Vladyslav Skorashevski mastered the first transport, and began to speak, pointing to the house in which the council was being held, —
“Do you hear, gracious gentlemen? They are selling the country there like Judases, and disgracing it. Do you know that we belong to Poland no longer? It was not enough for them to give into the hands of the enemy all of you, — camp, army, cannon. Would they were killed! They have affirmed with their own signatures and in your names that we abjure our ties with the country, that we abjure our king; that the whole land — towns, towers, and we all — shall belong forever to Sweden. That an army surrenders happens, but who has the right to renounce his country and his king? Who has the right to tear away a province, to join strangers, to go over to another people, to renounce his own blood? Gracious gentlemen, this is disgrace, treason, murder, parricide! Save the fatherland, brothers! In God’s name, whoever is a noble, whoever has virtue, let him save our mother. Let us give our lives, let us shed our blood! We do not want to be Swedes; we do not, we do not! Would that he had never been born who will spare his blood now! Let us rescue our mother!”
“Treason!” cried several hundred voices, “treason! Let us cut them to pieces.”
“Join us, whoever has virtue!” cried Skshetuski.
“Against the Swedes till death!” added Klodzinski.
And they went along farther in the camp, shouting: “Join us! Assemble! There is treason!” and after them moved now several hundred nobles with drawn sabres.
But an immense majority remained in their places; and of those who followed some, seeing that they were not many, began to look around and stand still.
Now the door of the council-house was thrown open, and in it appeared the voevoda of Poznan, Pan Opalinski, having on his right side General Wirtz, and on the left Radzeyovski. After them came Andrei Grudzinski, voevoda of Kalisk; Myaskovski, castellan of Kryvinsk; Gembitski, castellan of Myendzyrechka, and Andrei Slupski.
Pan Opalinski had in his hand a parchment with seals appended; he held his head erect, but his face was pale and his look uncertain, though evidently he was trying to be joyful. He took in with his glance the crowds, and in the midst of a deathlike silence began to speak with a piercing though somewhat hoarse voice, —
“Gracious gentlemen, this day we have put ourselves under the protection of the most serene King of Sweden. Vivat Carolus Gustavus Rex!”
Silence gave answer to the voevoda; suddenly some loud voice thundered, “Veto!”
The voevoda turned his eyes in the direction of the voice and said: “This is not a provincial diet, therefore a veto is not in place. And whoever wishes to veto let him go against the Swedish cannon turned upon us, which in one hour could make of this camp a pile of ruins.”
Then he was silent, and after a while inquired, “Who said Veto?”
No one answered.
The voevoda again raised his voice, and began still more emphatically: “All the liberties of the nobles and the clergy will be maintained; taxes will not be increased, and will be collected in the same manner as hitherto; no man will suffer wrongs or robbery. The armies of his royal Majesty have not the right to quarter on the property of nobles nor to other exactions, unless to such as the quota of the Polish squadrons enjoy.”
Here he was silent, and heard an anxious murmur of the nobles, as if they wished to understand his meaning; then he beckoned with his hand.
“Besides this, we have the word and promise of General Wirtz, given in the name of his royal Majesty, that if the whole country will follow our saving example, the Swedish armies will move promptly into Lithuania and the Ukraine, and will not cease to war until all the lands and all the fortresses of the Commonwealth are won back. Vivat Carolus Gustavus Rex!”
“Vivat Carolus Gustavus Rex!” cried hundreds of voices. “Vivat Carolus Gustavus Rex!” thundered still more loudly in the whole camp.
Here, before the eyes of all, the voevoda of Poznan turned to Radzeyovski and embraced him heartily; then he embraced Wirtz; then all began to embrace one another. The nobles followed the example of the dignitaries, and joy became universal. They gave vivats so loud that the echoes thundered throughout the whole region. But the voevoda of Poznan begged yet the beloved brotherhood for a moment of quiet, and said in a tone of cordiality, —
“Gracious gentlemen! General Wittemberg invites us today to a feast in his camp, so that at the goblets a brotherly alliance may be concluded with a manful people.”
“Vivat Wittemberg! vivat! vivat! vivat!”
“And after that, gracious gentlemen,” added the voevoda, “let us go to our homes, and with the assistance of God let us begin the harvest with the thought that on this day we have saved the fatherland.”
“Coming ages will render us justice,” said Radzeyovski.
“Amen!” finished the voevoda of Poznan.
Meanwhile he saw that the eyes of many nobles were gazing at and scanning something above his head. He turned and saw his own jester, who, holding with one hand to the frame above the door, was writing with a coal on the wall of the council-house over the door: “Mene Tekel-Peres.”
In the world the heavens were covered with clouds, and a tempest was coming.
CHAPTER XII.
In the district of Lukovo, on the edge of Podlyasye, stood the village of Bujets, owned by the Skshetuskis. In a garden between the mansion and a pond an old man was sitting on a bench; and at his feet were two little boys, — one five, the other four years old, — dark and sunburned as gypsies, but rosy and healthy. The old man, still fresh, seemed as sturdy as an aurochs. Age had not bent his broad shoulders; from his eyes — or rather from his eye, for he had one covered with a cataract — beamed health and good-humor; he had a white beard, but a look of strength and a ruddy face, ornamented on the forehead with a broad scar, through which his skull-bone was visible.
The little boys, holding the straps of his boot-leg, were pulling in opposite directions; but he was gazing at the pond, which gleamed with the rays of the sun, — at the pond, in which fish were springing up frequently, breaking the smooth surface of the water.
“The fish are dancing,” muttered he to himself. “Never fear, ye will dance still better when the floodgate is open, or when the cook is scratching you with a knife.” Then he turned to the little boys: “Get away from my boot-leg, for when I catch one of your ears, I’ll pull it off. Just like mad horse-flies! Go and roll balls there on the grass and let me alone! I do not wonder at Longinek, for he is young; but Yaremka ought to have sense by this time. Ah, torments! I’ll take one of you and throw him into the pond.”
But it was clear that the old man was in terrible subjection to the boys, for neither had the least fear of his threats; on the contrary, Yaremka, the elder, began to pull the boot-leg still harder, bracing his feet and repeating, —
“Oh, Grandfather, be Bogun and steal away Longinek.”
“Be off, thou beetle, I say, thou rogue, thou cheese-roll!”
“Oh, Grandfather, be Bogun!”
“I’ll give thee Bogun; wait till I call thy mother!”
Yaremka looked toward the door leading from the house to the garden, but finding it closed, and seeing no sign of his mother
, he repeated the third time, pouting, “Grandfather, be Bogun!”
“Ah, they will kill me, the rogues; it cannot be otherwise. Well, I’ll be Bogun, but only once. Oh, it is a punishment of God! Mind ye do not plague me again!”
When he had said this, the old man groaned a little, raised himself from the bench, then suddenly grabbed little Longinek, and giving out loud shouts, began to carry him off in the direction of the pond.
Longinek, however, had a valiant defender in his brother, who on such occasions did not call himself Yaremka, but Pan Michael Volodyovski, captain of dragoons.
Pan Michael, then, armed with a basswood club, which took the place of a sabre in this sudden emergency, ran swiftly after the bulky Bogun, soon caught up with him, and began to beat him on the legs without mercy.
Longinek, playing the rôle of his mamma, made an uproar, Bogun made an uproar, Yaremka-Volodyovski made an uproar; but valor at last overcame even Bogun, who, dropping his victim, began to make his way back to the linden-tree. At last he reached the bench, fell upon it, panting terribly and repeating, —
“Ah, ye little stumps! It will be a wonder if I do not suffocate.”
But the end of his torment had not come yet, for a moment later Yaremka stood before him with a ruddy face, floating hair, and distended nostrils, like a brisk young falcon, and began to repeat with greater energy, —
“Grandfather, be Bogun!”
After much teasing and a solemn promise given to the two boys that this would surely be the last time, the story was repeated in all its details; then they sat three in a row on the bench and Yaremka began, —
“Oh, Grandfather, tell who was the bravest.”
“Thou, thou!” said the old man.
“And shall I grow up to be a knight?”
“Surely thou wilt, for there is good soldier blood in thee. God grant thee to be like thy father; for if brave thou wilt not tease so much — understand me?”
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 114