Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “By no means. The balls go higher; and from the cannon they are firing in the other direction. I will not jump down for anything.”

  And Volodyovski, seizing the grating more firmly, drew himself entirely to the window-sill, where he did not need the shoulder of Pan Yan to hold him. In the cellar it became really dark, for the window was small and Pan Michael though slender filled it completely; but as a recompense the men below had fresh news from the field of battle every minute.

  “I see now!” cried Pan Michael. “The Hungarians are resting against the wall and are firing. I was afraid that they would be forced to a corner, then the cannon would destroy them in a moment. Good soldiers, as God is dear to me! Without officers, they know what is needed. There is smoke again! I see nothing—”

  The firing began to slacken.

  “O merciful God, delay not thy punishment!” cried Zagloba.

  “And what, Michael?” asked Yan.

  “The Scots are advancing to the attack!”

  “Oh, brimstone thunderbolts, that we must sit here!” cried Stanislav.

  “They are there already, the halberd-men! The Hungarians meet them with the sabre! Oh, my God! that you cannot look on. What soldiers!”

  “Fighting with their own and not with an enemy.”

  “The Hungarians have the upper hand. The Scots are falling back on the left. As I love God! Myeleshko’s dragoons are going over to them! The Scots are between two fires. Korf cannot use his cannon, for he would strike the Scots. I see Ganhoff uniforms among the Hungarians. They are going to attack the gate. They wish to escape. They are advancing like a storm, — breaking everything!”

  “How is that? I wish they would capture this castle!” cried Zagloba.

  “Never mind! They will come back to-morrow with the squadrons of Mirski and Stankyevich — Oh, Kharlamp is killed! No! He rises; he is wounded — they are already at the gate. What is that? Just as if the Scottish guard at the gate were coming over to the Hungarians, for they are opening the gate, — dust is rising on the outside; I see Kmita! Kmita is rushing through the gate with cavalry!”

  “On whose side is he, on whose side?” cried Zagloba.

  For a moment Pan Michael gave no answer; but very soon the clatter of weapons, shrieks, and shouts were heard with redoubled force.

  “It is all over with them!” cried Pan Michael, with a shrill voice.

  “All over with whom, with whom?”

  “With the Hungarians. The cavalry has broken them, is trampling them, cutting them to pieces! Their flag is in Kmita’s hand! The end, the end!”

  When he had said this, Volodyovski dropped from the window and fell into the arms of Pan Yan.

  “Kill me!” cried he, “kill me, for I had that man under my sabre and let him go with his life; I gave him his commission. Through me he assembled that squadron with which he will fight now against the country. I saw whom he got: dog-brothers, gallows-birds, robbers, ruffians, such as he is himself. God grant me to meet him once more with the sabre — God! lengthen my life to the death of that traitor, for I swear that he will not leave my hands again.”

  Meanwhile cries, the trample of hoofs, and salvos of musketry were thundering yet with full force; after a time, however, they began to weaken, and an hour later silence reigned in the castle of Kyedani, broken only by the measured tread of the Scottish patrols and words of command.

  “Pan Michael, look out once more and see what has happened,” begged Zagloba.

  “What for?” asked the little knight. “Whoso is a soldier will guess what has happened. Besides, I saw them beaten, — Kmita triumphs here!”

  “God give him to be torn with horses, the scoundrel, the hell-dweller! God give him to guard a harem for Tartars!”

  CHAPTER XVII.

  Pan Michael was right. Kmita had triumphed. The Hungarians and a part of the dragoons of Myeleshko and Kharlamp who had joined them, lay dead close together in the court of Kyedani. Barely a few tens of them had slipped out and scattered around the castle and the town, where the cavalry pursued them. Many were caught; others never stopped of a certainty till they reached the camp of Sapyeha, voevoda of Vityebsk, to whom they were the first to bring the terrible tidings of the grand hetman’s treason, of his desertion to the Swedes, of the imprisonment of the colonels and the resistance of the Polish squadrons.

  Meanwhile Kmita, covered with blood and dust, presented himself with the banner of the Hungarians before Radzivill, who received him with open arms. But Pan Andrei was not delighted with the victory. He was as gloomy and sullen as if he had acted against his heart.

  “Your highness,” said he, “I do not like to hear praises, and would rather a hundred times fight the enemy than soldiers who might be of service to the country. It seems to a man as if he were spilling his own blood.”

  “Who is to blame, if not those insurgents?” answered the prince. “I too would prefer to send them to Vilna, and I intended to do so. But they chose to rebel against authority. What has happened will not be undone. It was and it will be needful to give an example.”

  “What does your highness think of doing with the prisoners?”

  “A ball in the forehead of every tenth man. Dispose the rest among other regiments. You will go to-day to the squadrons of Mirski and Stankyevich, announce my order, to them to be ready for the campaign. I make you commander over those two squadrons, and over the third, that of Volodyovski. The lieutenants are to be subordinate to you and obey you in everything. I wished to send Kharlamp to that squadron at first, but he is useless. I have changed my mind.”

  “What shall I do in case of resistance? For with Volodyovski are Lauda men who hate me terribly.”

  “Announce that Mirski, Stankyevich, and Volodyovski will be shot immediately.”

  “Then they may come in arms to Kyedani to rescue these officers. All serving under Mirski are distinguished nobles.”

  “Take a regiment of Scottish infantry and a German regiment. First surround them, then announce the order.”

  “Such is the will of your highness.”

  Radzivill rested his hands on his knees and fell to thinking.

  “I would gladly shoot Mirski and Stankyevich were they not respected in the whole country as well as in their own regiments. I fear tumult and open rebellion, an example of which we have just had before our eyes. I am glad, thanks to you, that they have received a good lesson, and each squadron will think twice before rising against us. But it is imperative to act swiftly, so that resisting men may not go to the voevoda of Vityebsk.”

  “Your highness has spoken only of Mirski and Stankyevich, you have not mentioned Volodyovski and Oskyerko.”

  “I must spare Oskyerko, too, for he is a man of note and widely related; but Volodyovski comes from Russia and has no relatives here. He is a valiant soldier, it is true. I counted on him, — so much the worse that I was deceived. If the devil had not brought hither those wanderers his friends, he might have acted differently; but after what has happened, a bullet in the forehead waits him, as well as those two Skshetuskis and that third fellow, that bull who began first to bellow, ‘Traitor, traitor!’”

  Pan Andrei sprang up as if burned with iron: “Your highness, the soldiers say that Volodyovski saved your life at Tsibyhova.”

  “He did his duty; therefore I wanted to give him Dydkyemie for life. Now he has betrayed me; hence I give command to shoot him.”

  Kmita’s eyes flashed, and his nostrils began to quiver.

  “Your highness, that cannot be!”

  “How cannot be?” asked Radzivill, frowning.

  “I implore your highness,” said Kmita, carried away, “that not a hair fall from Volodyovski. Forgive me, I implore. Volodyovski had the power not to deliver to me the commission, for it was sent to him and left at his disposal. But he gave it. He plucked me out of the whirlpool. Through that act of his I passed into the jurisdiction of your highness. He did not hesitate to save me, though he and I were trying to win the same w
oman. I owe him gratitude, and I have vowed to repay him. Your highness, grant for my sake that no punishment touch him or his friends. A hair should not fall from the head of either of them, and as God is true, it will not fall while I live. I implore your highness.”

  Pan Andrei entreated and clasped his hands, but his words were ringing with anger, threats, and indignation. His unrestrained nature gained the upper hand, and he stood above Radzivill with flashing eyes and a visage like the head of an angry bird of prey. The hetman too had a storm in his face. Before his iron will and despotism everything hitherto in Lithuania and Russia had bent. No one had ever dared to oppose him, no one to beg mercy for those once condemned; but now Kmita’s entreating was merely for show, in reality he presented demands; and the position was such that it was impossible to refuse him.

  At the very beginning of his career of treason, the despot felt that he would have to yield more than once to the despotism of men and circumstances, and would be dependent on adherents of far less importance than this one; that Kmita, whom he wished to turn into a faithful dog, would be rather a captive wolf, ready when angry to bite its master’s hand.

  All this roused the proud blood of Radzivill. He resolved to resist, for his inborn terrible vengefulness urged him to that.

  “Volodyovski and the other three must lose their heads,” said he, with a loud voice.

  But to speak thus was to throw powder on fire.

  “If I had not dispersed the Hungarians, these are not the men who had lost their heads,” shouted Kmita.

  “How is this? Are you renouncing my service already?” asked the hetman, threateningly.

  “Your highness,” answered Pan Andrei, with passion, “I am not renouncing; I am begging, imploring. But the harm will not happen. These men are famous in all Poland. It cannot be, it cannot be! I will not be a Judas to Volodyovski. I will follow your highness into fire, but refuse not this favor.”

  “But if I refuse?”

  “Then give command to shoot me; I will not live! May thunderbolts split me! May devils take me living to hell!”

  “Remember, unfortunate, before whom you are speaking.”

  “Bring me not to desperation, your highness.”

  “To a prayer I may give ear, but a threat I will not consider.”

  “I beg, — I implore.” Here Pan Andrei threw himself on his knees. “Permit me, your highness, to serve you not from constraint, but with my heart, or I shall go mad.”

  Radzivill said nothing. Kmita was kneeling; pallor and flushes chased each other like lightning gleams over his face. It was clear that a moment more and he would burst forth in terrible fashion.

  “Rise!” said Radzivill.

  Pan Andrei rose.

  “To defend a friend you are able. I have the test that you will also be able to defend me and will never desert. But God made you of nitre, not of flesh, and have a care that you run not to fluid. I cannot refuse you anything. Listen to me: Stankyevich, Mirski, and Oskyerko I will send to the Swedes at Birji; let the two Skshetuskis and Volodyovski go with them. The Swedes will not tear off their heads there, and it is better that they sit out the war in quiet.”

  “I thank your highness, my father,” cried Andrei.

  “Wait,” said the prince. “I have respected your oath already too much; now respect mine. I have recorded death in my soul to that old noble, — I have forgotten his name, — that bellowing devil who came here with Skshetuski. He is the man who first called me traitor. He mentioned a bribe; he urged on the others, and perhaps there would not have been such opposition without his insolence.” Here the prince struck the table with his fist. “I should have expected death sooner, and the end of the world sooner, than that any one would dare to shout at me, Radzivill, to my face, ‘Traitor!’ In presence of people! There is not a death, there are not torments befitting such a crime. Do not beg me for him; it is useless.”

  But Pan Andrei was not easily discouraged when once he undertook a thing. He was not angry now, nor did he blaze forth. But seizing again the hand of the hetman, he began to cover it with kisses and to entreat with all the earnestness in his soul —

  “With no rope or chain could your highness bind my heart as with this favor. Only do it not half-way nor in part, but completely. That noble said yesterday what all thought. I myself thought the same till you opened my eyes, — may fire consume me, if I did not! A man is not to blame for being unwise. That noble was so drunk that what he had on his heart he shouted forth. He thought that he was defending the country, and it is hard to punish a man for love of country. He knew that he was exposing his life, and shouted what he had on his mind. He neither warms nor freezes me, but he is to Pan Volodyovski as a brother, or quite as a father. Volodyovski would mourn for him beyond measure, and I do not want that. Such is the nature within me, that if I wish good to a man I would give my soul for him. If any one has spared me, but killed my friend, may the devil take him for such a favor! Your highness, my father, benefactor, do a perfect kindness, — give me this noble, and I will give you all my blood, even tomorrow, this day, this moment!”

  Radzivill gnawed his mustaches. “I determined death to him yesterday in my soul.”

  “What the hetman and voevoda of Vilna determined, that can the Grand Prince of Lithuania and, God grant in the future, the King of Poland, as a gracious monarch, efface.”

  Pan Andrei spoke sincerely what he felt and thought; but had he been the most adroit of courtiers he could not have found a more powerful argument in defence of his friends. The proud face of the magnate grew bright at the sound of those titles which he did not possess yet, and he said, —

  “You have so understood me that I can refuse you nothing. They will all go to Birji. Let them expiate their faults with the Swedes; and when that has happened of which you have spoken, ask for them a new favor.”

  “As true as life, I will ask, and may God grant as quickly as possible!” said Kmita.

  “Go now, and bear the good news to them.”

  “The news is good for me, not for them; and surely they will not receive it with gratitude, especially since they did not suspect what threatened them. I will not go, your highness, for it would seem as if I were hurrying to boast of my intercession.”

  “Do as you please about that, but lose no time in bringing the squadrons of Mirski and Stankyevich; immediately after there will be another expedition for you, from which surely you will not flee.”

  “What is that?”

  “You will go to ask on my behalf Pan Billevich, the sword-bearer of Rossyeni, to come to me here at Kyedani, with his niece, and stay during the war. Do you understand?”

  Kmita was confused. “He will not be ready to do that. He went from Kyedani in a great rage.”

  “I think that the rage has left him already. In every case take men, and if they will not come of their own will put them in a carriage, surround it with dragoons, and bring them. He was as soft as wax when I spoke with him; he blushed like a maiden and bowed to the floor, but he was as frightened at the name of the Swedes as the devil is at holy water, and went away. I want him here for myself and for you; I hope to form out of that wax a candle that I can light when I like and for whom I like. It will be all the better if it happens so; but if not, I will have a hostage. The Billeviches are very powerful in Jmud, for they are related to almost all the nobles. When I have one of them in my hands, and that one the eldest, the others will think twice before they undertake anything against me. Furthermore, behind them and your maiden are all that throng of Lauda men, who, if they were to go to the camp of the voevoda of Vityebsk, would be received by him with open arms. That is an important affair, so important that I think to begin with the Billeviches.”

  “In Volodyovski’s squadron are Lauda men only.”

  “The guardians of your maiden. If that is true, begin by conveying her to Kyedani. Only listen: I will undertake to bring the sword-bearer to our side, but do you win the maiden as you can. When I bring over the s
word-bearer, he will help you with the girl. If she is willing, I will have the wedding for you at once. If not, take her to the altar without ceremony. When the storm is over, all will be well. That is the best method with women. She will weep, she will despair, when they drag her to the altar; but next day she will think that the devil is not so terrible as they paint him, and the third day she will be glad. How did you part from her yesterday?”

  “As if she had given me a slap in the face.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She called me a traitor. I was almost struck with paralysis.”

  “Is she so furious? When you are her husband, tell her that a distaff is fitter for her than public affairs, and hold her tight.”

  “Your highness does not know her. She must have a thing either virtue or vice; according to that she judges, and more than one man might envy her her mind. Before you can look around she has struck the point.”

  “She has struck you to the heart. Try to strike her in like manner.”

  “If God would grant that, your highness! Once I took her with armed hand, but afterward I vowed to do so no more. And something tells me that were I to take her by force to the altar it would not be to my heart, for I have promised her and myself not to use force again. If her uncle is convinced he will convince her, and then she will look on me differently. Now I will go to Billeviche and bring them both here, for I am afraid that she may take refuge in some cloister. But I tell your highness the pure truth, that though it is a great happiness for me to look on that maiden, I would rather attack the whole Swedish power than stand before her at present, for she does not know my honest intentions and holds me a traitor.”

  “If you wish I will send another, — Kharlamp or Myeleshko.”

  “No, I would rather go myself; besides, Kharlamp is wounded.”

  “That is better. I wanted to send Kharlamp yesterday to Volodyovski’s squadron to take command, and if need be force it to obedience; but he is an awkward fellow, and it turns out that he knows not how to hold his own men. I have no service for him. Go first for the sword-bearer and the maiden, and then to those squadrons. In an extreme case do not spare blood, for we must show the Swedes that we have power and are not afraid of rebellion. I will send the colonels away at once under escort; I hope that Pontus de la Gardie will consider this a proof of my sincerity. Myeleshko will take them. The beginning is difficult. I see that half Lithuania will rise against me.”