Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “He convinced the young man,” said Boguslav.

  “So that I fell at his feet,” cried Kmita, “and saw in him the father, the one savior, of the country; so that I gave myself to him soul and body as to a devil. For him, for his honesty I was ready to hurl myself headlong from the tower of Kyedani.”

  “I thought such would be the end,” said Boguslav.

  “What I lost in his cause I will not say, but I rendered him important services. I held in obedience my squadron, which is in Kyedani now, — God grant to his ruin! Others, who mutinied, I cut up badly. I stained my hands in brothers’ blood, believing that a stern necessity for the country. Often my soul was pained at giving command to shoot honest soldiers; often the nature of a noble rebelled against him, when one time and another he promised something and did not keep his word. But I thought: ‘I am simple, he is wise! — it must be done so.’ But to-day, when I learned for the first time from those letters of the poisons, the marrow stiffened in my bones. How? Is this the kind of war? You wish to poison soldiers? And that is to be in hetman fashion? That is to be the Radzivill method, and am I to carry such letters?”

  “You know nothing of politics, Cavalier,” interrupted Boguslav.

  “May the thunders crush it! Let the criminal Italians practise it, not a noble whom God has adorned with more honorable blood than others, but at the same time obliged him to war with a sabre and not with a drug-shop.”

  “These letters, then, so astonished you that you determined to leave the Radzivills?”

  “It was not the letters, — I might have thrown them to the hangman, or tossed them into the fire, for they refer not to my duties; it was not the letters. I might have refused the mission without leaving the cause. Do I know what I might have done? I might have joined the dragoons, or collected a party again, and harried Hovanski as before. But straightway a suspicion came to me: ‘But do they not wish to poison the country as well as those soldiers?’ God granted me not to break out, though my head was burning like a grenade, to remember myself, to have the power to think: ‘Draw him by the tongue, and discover the whole truth; betray not what you have at heart, give yourself out as worse than the Radzivills themselves, and draw him by the tongue.’”

  “Whom, — me?”

  “Yes! God aided me, so that I, simple man, deceived a politician, — so that your highness, holding me the last of ruffians, hid nothing of your own ruffianism, confessed everything, told everything, as if it had been written on the hand. The hair stood on my head, but I listened and listened to the end. O traitors! arch hell-dwellers! O parricides! How is it, that a thunderbolt has not stricken you down before now? How is it that the earth has not swallowed you? So you are treating with Hmelnitski, with the Swedes, with the elector, with Rakotsy, and with the devil himself to the destruction of this Commonwealth? Now you want to cut a mantle out of it for yourself, to sell it to divide it, to tear your own mother like wolves? Such is your gratitude for all the benefits heaped on you, — for the offices, the honors, the dignities, the wealth, the authority, the estates which foreign kings envy you? And you were ready without regard to those tears, torments, oppression. Where is your conscience, where your faith, where your honesty? What monster brought you into the world?”

  “Cavalier,” interrupted Boguslav, coldly, “you have me in your hand, you can kill me; but I beg one thing, do not bore me.”

  Both were silent.

  However, it appeared plainly, from the words of Kmita, that the soldier had been able to draw out the naked truth from the diplomat, and that the prince was guilty of great incautiousness, of a great error in betraying his most secret plans and those of the hetman. This pricked his vanity; therefore, not caring to hide his ill-humor, he said, —

  “Do not ascribe it to your own wit merely, Pan Kmita, that you got the truth from me. I spoke openly, for I thought the prince voevoda knew people better, and had sent a man worthy of confidence.”

  “The prince voevoda sent a man worthy of confidence,” answered Kmita, “but you have lost him. Henceforth only scoundrels will serve you.”

  “If the way in which you seized me was not scoundrelly, then may the sword grow to my hand in the first battle.”

  “It was a stratagem! I learned it in a hard school. You wish, your highness, to know Kmita. Here he is! I shall not go with empty hands to our gracious lord.”

  “And you think that a hair of my head will fall from the hand of Yan Kazimir?”

  “That is a question for the judges, not for me.”

  Suddenly Kmita reined in his horse: “But the letter of the prince voevoda, — have you that letter on your person?”

  “If I had, I would not give it. The letter remained in Pilvishki.”

  “Search him!” cried Kmita.

  The soldiers seized the prince again by the arms. Soroka began to search his pockets. After a while he found the letter.

  “Here is one document against you and your works,” said Pan Andrei, taking the letter. “The King of Poland will know from it what you have in view; the Swedish King will know too, that although now you are serving him, the prince voevoda reserves to himself freedom to withdraw if the Swedish foot stumbles. All your treasons will come out, all your machinations. But I have, besides, other letters, — to the King of Sweden, to Wittemberg, to Radzeyovski. You are great and powerful; still I am not sure that it will not be too narrow for you in this Commonwealth, when both kings will prepare a recompense worthy of your treasons.”

  Prince Boguslav’s eyes gleamed with ill-omened light, but after a while he mastered his anger and said, —

  “Well, Cavalier! For life or death between us! We have met! You may cause us trouble and much evil, but I say this: No man has dared hitherto to do in this country what you have done. Woe be to you and to yours!”

  “I have a sabre to defend myself, and I have something to redeem my own with,” answered Kmita.

  “You have me as a hostage,” said the prince.

  And in spite of all his anger he breathed calmly; he understood one thing at this moment, that in no case was his life threatened, — that his person was too much needed by Kmita.

  Then they went again at a trot, and after an hour’s ride they saw two horsemen, each of whom led a pair of packhorses. They were Kmita’s men sent in advance from Pilvishki.

  “What is the matter?” asked Kmita.

  “The horses are terribly tired, for we have not rested yet.”

  “We shall rest right away!”

  “There is a cabin at the turn, maybe ’tis a public house.”

  “Let the sergeant push on to prepare oats. Public house or not, we must halt.”

  “According to order, Commander.”

  Soroka gave reins to the horses, and they followed him slowly. Kmita rode at one side of the prince, Lubyenyets at the other. Boguslav had become completely calm and quiet; he did not draw Pan Andrei into further conversation. He seemed to be exhausted by the journey, or by the position in which he found himself, and dropping his head somewhat on his breast, closed his eyes. Still from time to time he cast a side look now at Kmita, now at Lubyenyets, who held the reins of the horse, as if studying to discover who would be the easier to overturn so as to wrest himself free.

  They approached the building situated on the roadside at a bulge of the forest. It was not a public house, but a forge and a wheelwright-shop, in which those going by the road stopped to shoe their horses and mend their wagons. Between the forge and the road there was a small open area, sparsely covered with trampled grass; fragments of wagons and broken wheels lay thrown here and there on that place, but there were no travellers. Soroka’s horses stood tied to a post. Soroka himself was talking before the forge to the blacksmith, a Tartar, and two of his assistants.

  “We shall not have an over-abundant repast,” said the prince; “there is nothing to be had here.”

  “We have food and spirits with us,” answered Kmita.

  “That is well! We shall ne
ed strength.”

  They halted. Kmita thrust his pistol behind his belt, sprang from the saddle, and giving his horse to Soroka, seized again the reins of the prince’s horse, which however Lubyenyets had not let go from his hand on the other side.

  “Your highness will dismount!” said Kmita.

  “Why is that? I will eat and drink in the saddle,” said the prince, bending down.

  “I beg you to come to the ground!” said Kmita, threateningly.

  “But into the ground with you!” cried the prince, with a terrible voice; and drawing with the quickness of lightning the pistol from Kmita’s belt, he thundered into his very face.

  “Jesus, Mary!” cried Kmita.

  At this moment the horse under the prince struck with spurs reared so that he stood almost erect; the prince turned like a snake in the saddle toward Lubyenyets, and with all the strength of his powerful arm struck him with the pistol between the eyes.

  Lubyenyets roared terribly and fell from the horse.

  Before the others could understand what had happened, before they had drawn breath, before the cry of fright had died on their lips, Boguslav scattered them as a storm would have done, rushed from the square to the road, and shot on like a whirlwind toward Pilvishki.

  “Seize him! Hold him! Kill him!” cried wild voices.

  Three soldiers who were sitting yet on the horses rushed after him; but Soroka seized a musket standing at the wall, and aimed at the fleeing man, or rather at his horse.

  The horse stretched out like a deer, and moved forward like an arrow urged from the string. The shot thundered. Soroka rushed through the smoke for a better view of what he had done; he shaded his eyes with his hand, gazed awhile, and cried at last, —

  “Missed!”

  At this moment Boguslav disappeared beyond the bend, and after him vanished the pursuers.

  Then Soroka turned to the blacksmith and his assistants, who were looking up to that moment with dumb astonishment at what had happened, and cried, —

  “Water!”

  The blacksmith ran to draw water, and Soroka knelt near Pan Andrei, who was lying motionless. Kmita’s face was covered with powder from the discharge, and with drops of blood; his eyes were closed, his left brow and left temple were blackened. The sergeant began first to feel lightly with his fingers the head of his colonel.

  “His head is sound.”

  But Kmita gave no signs of life, and blood came abundantly from his face. The blacksmith’s assistants brought a bucket of water and a cloth. Soroka, with equal deliberation and care, began to wipe Kmita’s face.

  Finally the wound appeared from under the blood and blackness. The ball had opened Kmita’s left cheek deeply, and had carried away the end of his ear. Soroka examined to see if his cheek-bone were broken.

  After a while he convinced himself that it was not, and drew a long breath. Kmita, under the influence of cold water and pain, began to give signs of life. His face quivered, his breast heaved with breath.

  “He is alive! — nothing! he will be unharmed,” cried Soroka, joyfully; and a tear rolled down the murderous face of the sergeant.

  Meanwhile at the turn of the road appeared Biloüs, one of the three soldiers who had followed the prince.

  “Well, what?” called Soroka.

  The soldier shook his head. “Nothing!”

  “Will the others return soon?”

  “The others will not return.”

  With trembling hands the sergeant laid Kmita’s head on the threshold of the forge, and sprang to his feet. “How is that?”

  “Sergeant, that prince is a wizard! Zavratynski caught up first, for he had the best horse, and because the prince let him catch up. Before our eyes Boguslav snatched the sabre from his hand and thrust him through. We had barely to cry out. Vitkovski was next, and sprang to help; and him this Radzivill cut down before my eyes, as if a thunderbolt had struck him. He did not give a sound. I did not wait my turn. Sergeant, the prince is ready to come back here.”

  “There is nothing in this place for us,” said Soroka. “To horse!”

  That moment they began to make a stretcher between the horses for Kmita. Two of the soldiers, at the command of Soroka, stood with muskets on the road, fearing the return of the terrible man.

  But Prince Boguslav, convinced that Kmita was not alive, rode quietly to Pilvishki. About dark he was met by a whole detachment of horsemen sent out by Patterson, whom the absence of the prince had disturbed for some time. The officer, on seeing the prince, galloped to him, —

  “Your highness, we did not know—”

  “That is nothing!” interrupted Prince Boguslav. “I was riding this horse in the company of that cavalier, of whom I bought him.”

  And after a while he added: “I paid him well.”

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  The trusty Soroka carried his colonel through the deep forest, not knowing himself what to begin, whither to go or to turn.

  Kmita was not only wounded, but stunned by the shot. Soroka from time to time moistened the piece of cloth in a bucket hanging by the horse, and washed his face; at times he halted to take fresh water from the streams and forest ponds; but neither halts nor the movement of the horse could restore at once consciousness to Pan Andrei, and he lay as if dead, till the soldiers going with him, and less experienced in the matter of wounds than Soroka, began to be alarmed for the life of their colonel.

  “He is alive,” answered Soroka; “in three days he will be on horseback like any of us.”

  In fact, an hour later, Kmita opened his eyes; but from his mouth came forth one word only, —

  “Drink!”

  Soroka held a cup of pure water to his lips; but it seemed that to open his mouth caused Pan Andrei unendurable pain, and he was unable to drink. But he did not lose consciousness: he asked for nothing, apparently remembered nothing; his eyes were wide open, and he gazed, without attention, toward the depth of the forest, on the streaks of blue sky visible through the dense branches above their heads, and at his comrades, like a man roused from sleep, or like one recovered from drunkenness, and permitted Soroka to take care of him without saying a word, — nay, the cold water with which the sergeant washed the wound seemed to give him pleasure, for at times his eyes smiled. But Soroka comforted him, —

  “To-morrow the dizziness will pass, Colonel; God grant recovery.”

  In fact, dizziness began to disappear toward evening; for just before the setting of the sun Kmita seemed more self-possessed and asked on a sudden, “What noise is that?”

  “What noise? There is none,” answered Soroka.

  Apparently the noise was only in the head of Pan Andrei, for the evening was calm. The setting sun, piercing the gloom with its slanting rays, filled with golden glitter the forest darkness, and lighted the red trunks of the pine-trees. There was no wind, and only here and there, from hazel, birch, and hornbeam trees leaves dropped to the ground, or timid beasts made slight rustle in fleeing to the depths of the forest in front of the horsemen.

  The evening was cool; but evidently fever had begun to attack Pan Andrei, for he repeated, —

  “Your highness, it is life or death between us!”

  At last it became dark altogether, and Soroka was thinking of a night camp; but because they had entered a damp forest and the ground began to yield under the hoofs of their horses, they continued to ride in order to reach high and dry places.

  They rode one hour and a second without being able to pass the swamp. Meanwhile it was growing lighter, for the moon had risen. Suddenly Soroka, who was in advance, sprang from the saddle and began to look carefully at the ground.

  “Horses have passed this way,” said he, at sight of tracks in the soft earth.

  “Who could have passed, when there is no road?” asked one of the soldiers supporting Pan Kmita.

  “But there are tracks, and a whole crowd of them! Look here between the pines, — as evident as on the palm of the hand!”

  “Perhaps c
attle have passed.”

  “Impossible. It is not the time of forest pastures; horse-hoofs are clearly to be seen, somebody must have passed. It would be well to find even a forester’s cabin.”

  “Let us follow the trail.”

  “Let us ride forward!”

  Soroka mounted again and rode on. Horses’ tracks in the turfy ground were more distinct; and some of them, as far as could be seen in the light of the moon, seemed quite fresh. Still the horses sank to their knees, and beyond. The soldiers were afraid that they could not wade through, or would come to some deeper quagmire; when, at the end of half an hour, the odor of smoke and rosin came to their nostrils.

  “There must be a pitch-clearing here,” said Soroka.

  “Yes, sparks are to be seen,” said a soldier.

  And really in the distance appeared a line of reddish smoke, filled with flame, around which were dancing the sparks of a fire burning under the ground.

  When they had approached, the soldiers saw a cabin, a well, and a strong shed built of pine logs. The horses, wearied from the road, began to neigh; frequent neighing answered them from under the shed, and at the same time there stood before the riders some kind of a figure, dressed in sheepskin, wool outward.

  “Are there many horses?” asked the man in the sheepskin.

  “Is this a pitch-factory?” inquired Soroka.

  “What kind of people are ye? Where do ye come from?” asked the pitch-maker, in a voice in which astonishment and alarm were evident.

  “Never fear!” answered Soroka; “we are not robbers.”

  “Go your own way; there is nothing for you here.”

  “Shut thy mouth, and guide us to the house since we ask. Seest not, scoundrel, that we are taking a wounded man?”

  “What kind of people are ye?”