Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “Now, Pan Michael, it is time to show what you can do. Go to Volkovysk and destroy those ruffians who are threatening an undefended town. Such an expedition is not a novelty for you; I think you will take it as a favor that I give such functions.” Here he turned to the other colonels: “I must remain in camp myself, for all the responsibility is on me, that is, first; and second, it does not beseem my office to go on an expedition against ruffians. But let Radzivill come, then in a great battle it will be shown who is superior, — the hetman or the commander.”

  Volodyovski set out with alacrity, for he was weary of camp life and yearned for battle. The squadrons selected marched out willingly and with singing; the commander appeared on the rampart on horseback, and blessed the departing, making over them the sign of the cross for the road. There were some who wondered that Zagloba sent off that party with such solemnity, but he remembered that Jolkyevski and other hetmans had the habit of making the sign of the cross over squadrons when going to battle; besides, he loved to do everything with ceremony, for that raised his dignity in the eyes of the soldiers.

  Barely had the squadrons vanished in the haze of the distance, when he began to be alarmed about them.

  “Yan!” said he, “another handful of men might be sent to Volodyovski.”

  “Be at rest, father,” answered Pan Yan. “For Volodyovski to go on such an expedition is the same as to eat a plate of fried eggs. Dear God, he has done nothing else all his life!”

  “That is true; but if an overwhelming force should attack him? Nec Hercules contra plures (Neither Hercules against [too] many).”

  “What is the use in talking about such a soldier? He will test everything carefully before he strikes; and if the forces against him are too great, he will pluck off what he can and return, or will send for reinforcements. You may sleep quietly, father.”

  “Ah, I also knew whom I was sending, but I tell you that Pan Michael must have given me some herb; I have such a weakness for him. I have never loved any one so, except Podbipienta and you. It cannot be but that little fellow has given me something.”

  Three days passed. Provisions were brought continually, volunteers also marched in, but of Pan Michael not a sound. Zagloba’s fears increased, and in spite of Pan Yan’s remonstrance that in no way could Volodyovski return yet from Volkovysk, Zagloba sent one hundred of Yakub Kmita’s light horse for intelligence.

  The scouts marched out, and two days more passed without news.

  On the seventh day, during a gray misty nightfall, the camp-attendants sent for food to Bobrovniki returned in great haste, with the report that they had seen some army coming out of the forest beyond Bobrovniki.

  “Pan Michael!” exclaimed Zagloba, joyfully.

  But the men contradicted that. They had not gone to meet it for the special reason that they saw strange flags, not belonging to Volodyovski’s troops. And besides, this force was greater. The attendants, being attendants, could not fix the number exactly; some said there were three thousand; others five thousand, or still more.

  “I will take twenty horsemen and go to meet them,” said Captain Lipnitski.

  He went.

  An hour passed, and a second; at last it was stated that not a party was approaching, but a whole army.

  It is unknown why, but on a sudden it was thundered through the camp, —

  “Radzivill is coming!”

  This report, like an electric shock, moved and shook the whole camp; the soldiers rushed to the bulwarks. On some faces terror was evident; the men did not stand in proper order; Oskyerko’s infantry only occupied the places indicated. Among the volunteers there was a panic at the first moment. From mouth to mouth flew various reports: “Radzivill has cut to pieces Volodyovski and the second party formed of Yakub Kmita’s men,” repeated some. “Not a witness of the defeat has escaped!” said others. “And now Lipnitski has gone, as it were, under the earth.” “Where is the commander? Where is the commander?”

  The colonels rushed to establish order; and since all in the camp, save a few volunteers, were old soldiers, they soon stood in order, waiting for what would appear.

  When the cry came, “Radzivill is coming!” Zagloba was greatly confused; but in the first moment he would not believe it.

  “What has happened to Volodyovski? Has he let himself be surrounded, so that not a man has come back with a warning? And the second party? And Pan Lipnitski? Impossible!” repeated Zagloba to himself, wiping his forehead, which was sweating profusely. “Has this dragon, this man-killer, this Lucifer, been able to come from Kyedani already? Is the last hour approaching?”

  Meanwhile from every side voices more and more numerous cried, “Radzivill! Radzivill!”

  Zagloba ceased to doubt. He sprang up and rushed to Pan Yan’s quarters. “Oh, Yan, save! It is time now!”

  “What has happened?” asked Pan Yan.

  “Radzivill is coming! To your head I give everything, for Prince Yeremi said that you are a born leader. I will superintend myself, but do you give counsel and lead.”

  “That cannot be Radzivill!” said Pan Yan. “From what direction are the troops marching?”

  “From Volkovysk. It is said that they have taken Volodyovski and the second party which I sent not long ago.”

  “Volodyovski let himself be taken! Oh, father, you do not know him. He is coming back himself, — no one else!”

  “But it is said that there is an enormous army!”

  “Praise be to God! it is clear then that Sapyeha is coming.”

  “For God’s sake! what do you tell me? Why then was it said that Lipnitski went against them?”

  “That is just the proof that it is not Radzivill who is coming. Lipnitski discovered who it was, joined, and all are coming together. Let us go out, let us go out!”

  “I said that the first moment!” cried Zagloba. “All were frightened, but I thought, ‘That cannot be!’ I saw the position at once. Come! hurry, Yan, hurry! Those men out there are confused. Aha!”

  Zagloba and Pan Yan hastened to the ramparts, occupied already by the troops, and began to pass along. Zagloba’s face was radiant; he stopped every little while, and cried so that all heard him, —

  “Gracious gentlemen, we have guests! I have no reason to lose heart! If that is Radzivill, I’ll show him the road back to Kyedani!”

  “We’ll show him!” cried the army.

  “Kindle fires on the ramparts! We will not hide ourselves; let them see us, we are ready! Kindle fires!”

  Straightway they brought wood, and a quarter of an hour later the whole camp was flaming, till the heavens grew red as if from daybreak. The soldiers, turning away from the light, looked into the darkness in the direction of Bobrovniki. Some of them cried that they heard a clatter and the stamp of horses.

  Just then in the darkness musket-shots were heard from afar. Zagloba pulled Pan Yan by the skirts.

  “They are beginning to fire!” said he, disquieted.

  “Salutes!” answered Pan Yan.

  After the shots shouts of joy were heard. There was no reason for further doubt; a moment later a number of riders rushed in on foaming horses, crying, —

  “Pan Sapyeha! the voevoda of Vityebsk!”

  Barely had the soldiers heard this, when they rushed forth from the walls, like an overflowed river, and ran forward, roaring so that any one hearing their voices from afar might think them cries from a town in which victors were putting all to the sword.

  Zagloba, wearing all the insignia of his office, with a baton in his hand and a heron’s feather in his cap, rode out under his horse-tail standard, at the head of the colonels, to the front of the fortifications.

  After a while the voevoda of Vityebsk at the head of his officers, and with Volodyovski at his side, rode into the lighted circle. He was a man already in respectable years, of medium weight, with a face not beautiful, but wise and kindly. His mustaches, cut evenly over his upper lip, were iron-gray, as was also a small beard, which made him rese
mble a foreigner, though he dressed in Polish fashion. Though famous for many military exploits he looked more like a civilian than a soldier; those who knew him more intimately said that in the countenance of the voevoda Minerva was greater than Mars. But, besides Minerva and Mars, there was in that face a gem rarer in those times; that is honesty, which flowing forth from his soul was reflected in his eyes as the light of the sun is in water. At the first glance people recognized that he was a just and honorable man.

  “We waited as for a father!” cried the soldiers.

  “And so our leader has come!” repeated others, with emotion.

  “Vivat, vivat!”

  Pan Zagloba, at the head of his colonels, hurried toward Sapyeha, who reined in his horse and began to bow with his lynx-skin cap.

  “Serene great mighty voevoda!” began Zagloba, “though I possessed the eloquence of the ancient Romans, nay, of Cicero himself, or, going to remoter times, of that famous Athenian, Demosthenes, I should not be able to express the delight which has seized our hearts at sight of the worthy person of the serene great mighty lord. The whole Commonwealth is rejoicing in our hearts, greeting the wisest senator and the best son, with a delight all the greater because unexpected. Behold, we were drawn out here on these bulwarks under arms, not ready for greeting, but for battle, — not to hear shouts of delight, but the thunder of cannon, — not to shed tears, but our blood! When however hundred-tongued Fame bore around the news that the defender of the fatherland was coming, not the heretic, — the voevoda of Vityebsk, not the grand hetman of Lithuania, — Sapyeha, not Radzivill—”

  But Pan Sapyeha was in an evident hurry to enter; for he waved his hand quickly, with a kindly though lordly inattention, and said, —

  “Radzivill also is coming. In two days he will be here!”

  Zagloba was confused; first, because the thread of his speech was broken, and second, because the news of Radzivill made a great impression on him. He stood therefore a moment before Sapyeha, not knowing what further to say; but he came quickly to his mind, and drawing hurriedly the baton from his belt, said with solemnity, calling to mind what had taken place at Zbaraj, —

  “The army has chosen me for its leader, but I yield this into worthier hands, so as to give an example to the younger how we must resign the highest honors for the public good.”

  The soldiers began to shout; but Pan Sapyeha only smiled and said, —

  “Lord brother, I would gladly receive it, but Radzivill might think that you gave it through fear of him.”

  “Oh, he knows me already,” answered Zagloba, “and will not ascribe fear to me. I was the first to stagger him in Kyedani; and I drew others after me by my example.”

  “If that is the ease, then lead on to the camp,” said Sapyeha. “Volodyovski told me on the road that you are an excellent manager and have something on which to subsist; and we are wearied and hungry.”

  So saying, he spurred on his horse, and after him moved the others; and all entered the camp amid measureless rejoicing. Zagloba, remembering what was said of Sapyeha, — that he liked feasts and the goblet, — determined to give fitting honor to the day of his coming; hence he appeared with a feast of such splendor as had not been yet in the camp. All ate and drank. At the cups Volodyovski told what had happened at Volkovysk, — how forces, considerably greater than his own, had been sent out by Zolotarenko, how the traitor had surrounded him, how straitened he was when the sudden arrival of Sapyeha turned a desperate defence into a brilliant victory.

  “We gave them something to think of,” said he, “so that they will not stick an ear out of their camp.”

  Then the conversation turned to Radzivill. The voevoda of Vityebsk had very recent tidings, and knew through reliable people of everything that took place in Kyedani. He said therefore that the hetman had sent a certain Kmita with a letter to the King of Sweden, and with a request to strike Podlyasye from two sides at once.

  “This is a wonder of wonders to me!” exclaimed Zagloba; “for had it not been for that Kmita, we should not have concentrated our forces to this moment, and if Radzivill had come he might have eaten us up, one after the other, like puddings of Syedlets.”

  “Volodyovski told me all that,” said Sapyeha, “from which I infer that Kmita has a personal affection for you. It is too bad that he hasn’t it for the country. But people who see nothing above themselves, serve no cause well and are ready to betray any one, as in this case Kmita Radzivill.”

  “But among us there are no traitors, and we are ready to stand up with the serene great mighty voevoda to the death!” said Jyromski.

  “I believe that here are most honorable soldiers,” answered Sapyeha, “and I had no expectation of finding such order and abundance, for which I must give thanks to his grace Pan Zagloba.”

  Zagloba blushed with pleasure, for somehow it had seemed to him hitherto that though the voevoda of Vityebsk had treated him graciously, still he had not given him the recognition and respect which he, the ex-commander, desired. He began therefore to relate how he had made regulations, what he had done, what supplies he had collected, how he had brought cannon, and formed infantry, finally what an extensive correspondence he had carried on; and not without boasting did he make mention of the letters sent to the banished king, to Hovanski, and to the elector.

  “After my letter, his grace the elector must declare for us openly or against us,” said he, with pride.

  The voevoda of Vityebsk was a humorous man, and perhaps also he was a little joyous from drink; therefore he smoothed his mustache, laughed maliciously, and said, —

  “Lord brother, but have you not written to the Emperor of Germany?”

  “No!” answered Zagloba, astonished.

  “That is a pity,” said the voevoda; “for there an equal would have talked with an equal.”

  The colonels burst into a thundering laugh; but Zagloba showed at once that if the voevoda wished to be a scythe, he had struck a stone.

  “Serene great mighty lord,” said he, “I can write to the elector, for as a noble I am an elector myself, and I exercised my rights not so long ago when I gave my voice for Yan Kazimir.”

  “You have brought that out well,” answered Sapyeha.

  “But with such a potentate as the Emperor I do not correspond,” continued Zagloba, “lest he might apply to me a certain proverb which I heard in Lithuania.”

  “What was the proverb?”

  “Such a fool’s head as that must have come out of Vityebsk!” answered Zagloba, without confusion.

  Hearing this, the colonels were frightened; but the voevoda leaned back and held his sides from laughter.

  “Ah, but you have settled me this time! Let me embrace you! Whenever I want to shave my beard I’ll borrow your tongue!”

  The feast continued till late in the night; it was broken up by the arrival of nobles from Tykotsin, who brought news that Radzivill’s scouts had already reached that place.

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  Radzivill would have fallen on Podlyasye long before, had not various reasons held him back in Kyedani. First, he was waiting for the Swedish reinforcements, which Pontus de la Gardie delayed by design. Although bonds of relationship connected the Swedish general with the king himself, he could not compare in greatness of family, in importance, in extensive connections by blood, with that Lithuanian magnate; and as to fortune, though at that time there was no ready money in Radzivill’s treasury, all the Swedish generals might have been portioned with one half of the prince’s estates and consider themselves wealthy. Now, when by the turn of fortune Radzivill was dependent on Pontus, the general could not deny himself the pleasure of making that lord feel his dependence and the superiority of De la Gardie.

  Radzivill did not need reinforcements to defeat the confederates, since for that he had forces enough of his own; but the Swedes were necessary to him for the reasons mentioned by Kmita in his letter to Volodyovski. He was shut off from Podlyasye by the legions of Hovanski, who might bl
ock the road to him; but if Radzivill marched together with Swedish troops, and under the ægis of the King of Sweden, every hostile step on the part of Hovanski would be considered a challenge to Karl Gustav. Radzivill wished this in his soul, and therefore he waited impatiently for the arrival of even one Swedish squadron, and while urging Pontus he said more than once to his attendants, —

  “A couple of years ago he would have thought it a favor to receive a letter from me, and would have left the letter by will to his descendants; but to-day he takes on the airs of a superior.”

  To which a certain noble, loud-mouthed and truth-telling, known in the whole neighborhood, allowed himself to answer at once, —

  “According to the proverb, mighty prince, ‘As a man makes his bed, so must he sleep on it.’”

  Radzivill burst out in anger, and gave orders to cast the noble into the tower; but on the following day he let him out and presented him with a gold button; for of this noble it was said that he had ready money, and the prince wanted to borrow money of him on his note. The noble accepted the button, but gave not the money.

  Swedish reinforcements came at last, to the number of eight hundred horse, of the heavy cavalry. Pontus sent directly to the castle of Tykotsin three hundred infantry and one hundred light cavalry, wishing to have his own garrison there in every event.

  Hovanski’s troops withdrew before them, making no opposition; they arrived therefore safely at Tykotsin, for this took place when the confederate squadrons were still scattered over all Podlyasye, and were occupied only in plundering the estates of Radzivill.

  It was hoped that the prince, after he had received the desired reinforcements, would take the field at once; but he loitered yet. The cause of this was news from Podlyasye of disagreement in that province; of lack of union among the confederates, and misunderstandings between Kotovski, Lipnitski, and Yakub Kmita.