The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  For not only did an enemy follow the army; various “parties” under unknown leaders and bands of peasants crossed its road continually. Those bodies, unformed and not very numerous, could not, it is true, strike it with offensive warfare, but they wearied it mortally. And wishing to instil into the Swedes the conviction that Tartars had already come with assistance, all the Polish troops gave forth the Tartar shout; therefore “Allah! Allah!” was heard night and day without a moment’s cessation. The Swedish soldiers could not draw breath, could not put aside their armor for an instant. More than once a few men alarmed the whole camp. Horses fell by tens, and were eaten immediately; for the transport of provisions had become impossible. From time to time the Polish horsemen found Swedish corpses terribly disfigured; here they recognized at once the hands of peasants. The greater part of the villages in the triangle between the San and the Vistula belonged to the marshal and his relatives; therefore all the peasants in those parts rose up as one man, for the marshal, unsparing of his own fortune, had announced that whoever took up arms would be freed from subjection. Scarcely had this news gone the round of the region when the peasants put their scythes on staffs and began to bring Swedish heads into camp: they brought them in every day till Lyubomirski was forced to prohibit that custom as unchristian. Then they brought in gloves and boots. The Swedes, driven to desperation, flayed those who fell into their hands; and the war became more and more dreadful. Some of the Polish troops adhered yet to the Swedes, but they adhered only through fear. On the road to Lejaysk many of them deserted; those who remained made such tumults in the camp daily that Karl Gustav gave orders to shoot a number of officers. This was the signal for a general withdrawal, which was effected sabre in hand. Few, if any, Poles remained; but Charnyetski, gaining new strength, attacked with still greater vigor.

  The marshal gave most effectual assistance. During this period, which by the way was short, the nobler sides of Lyubomirski’s nature gained, perhaps, the upper hand over his pride and self-love; therefore he omitted no toil, he spared neither his health nor his person, he led squadrons frequently, gave the enemy no rest; and as he was a good soldier he rendered good services. These, added to his later ones, would have secured him a glorious memory in the nation, were it not for that shameless rebellion which toward the end of his career he raised in order to hinder the reform of the Commonwealth.

  But at this time he did everything to win glory, and he covered himself with it as with a robe. Pan Vitovski, the castellan of Sandomir, an old and experienced soldier, vied with him. Vitovski wished to equal Charnyetski himself; but he could not, for God had denied him greatness.

  All three crushed the Swedes more and more, and with such effect that the infantry and cavalry regiments, to whom it came to form the rearguard on the retreat, marched with so much fear that a panic arose among them from the slightest cause. Then Karl Gustav decided to march always with the rearguard, so as to give courage by his presence.

  But in the very beginning he almost paid for this position with his life. It happened that having with him a detachment of the life-guards,—the largest of all the regiments, for the soldiers in it were selected from the whole Scandinavian people,—the king stopped for refreshment at the village of Rudnik. When he had dined with the parish priest he decided to sleep a little, since he had not closed his eyes the night preceding. The life-guards surrounded the house, to watch over the safety of the king. Meanwhile the priest’s horse-boy stole away from the village, and coming up to a mare in the field, sprang upon her colt and raced off to Charnyetski.

  Charnyetski was ten miles distant at this time; but his vanguard, composed of the regiment of Prince Dymitri Vishnyevetski, was marching under Shandarovski, the lieutenant, about two miles behind the Swedes. Shandarovski was just talking to Roh Kovalski, who had ridden up that moment with orders from Charnyetski, when suddenly both saw the lad flying toward them at all horse speed.

  “What devil is that racing up so,” asked Shandarovski, “and besides on a colt?”

  “Some village lad,” said Kovalski.

  Meanwhile the boy had ridden to the front of the rank, and only stopped when the colt, frightened at horses and men, stood on his hind legs and dug his hoofs into the earth. The youth sprang off, and holding the colt by the mane, bowed to the knights.

  “Well, what have you to say?” asked the lieutenant, approaching him.

  “The Swedes are with us at the priest’s house; they say that the king himself is among them!” said the youth, with sparkling eyes.

  “Many of them?”

  “Not more than two hundred horses.”

  Shandarovski’s eyes now flashed in their turn; but he was afraid of an ambush, therefore he looked threateningly at the boy and asked,—

  “Who sent you?”

  “Who was to send me? I jumped myself on the colt, I came near falling, and lost my cap. It is well that the Swedish carrion did not see me!”

  Truth was beating out of the sunburned face of the youth; he had evidently a great animosity against the Swedes,—he was panting, his cheeks were burning, he stood before the officers holding the mane of the colt with one hand, his hair disordered, the shirt open on his bosom.

  “Where is the rest of the Swedish army?” asked the lieutenant.

  “At daybreak so many passed that we could not count them; those went farther, only cavalry remained. But there is one sleeping at the priest’s, and they say that he is the king.”

  “Boy,” answered Shandarovski, “if you are lying, your head will fall; but if you speak the truth, ask what you please.”

  “As true as I live! I want nothing unless the great mighty lord officer would command to give me a sabre.”

  “Give him some blade,” cried Shandarovski to his attendants, completely convinced now.

  The other officers fell to inquiring of the boy where the house was, where the village, what the Swedes were doing.

  “The dogs! they are watching. If you go straight they will see you; but I will take you behind the alder grove.”

  Orders were given at once, and the squadron moved on, first at a trot and then at a gallop. The youth rode before the first rank bareback on his colt without a bridle. He urged the colt with his heels, and every little while looked with sparkling eyes on the naked sabre.

  When the village was in sight, he turned out of the willows and led by a somewhat muddy road to the alder grove, in which it was still muddier; therefore they slackened the speed of the horses.

  “Watch!” said the boy; “they are about ten rods on the right from the end of the alder grove.”

  They advanced now very slowly, for the road was difficult and heavy; the cavalry horses sank frequently to their knees. At last the alder grove began to grow thinner, and they came to the edge of the open space.

  Not more than three hundred yards distant, they saw a broad square rising somewhat, and in it the priest’s house surrounded by poplars, among which were to be seen the tops of straw beehives. On the square were two hundred horsemen in rimmed helmets and breastplates.

  The great horsemen sat on enormous lean horses, and were in readiness,—some with rapiers at their shoulders, others with muskets on their thighs; but they were looking in another direction toward the main road, from which alone they expected the enemy. A splendid blue standard with a golden lion was waving above their heads.

  Farther on, around the house stood guards by twos. One was turned toward the alder grove; but because the sun shone brightly and struck his eyes, and in the alders, which were already covered with thick leaves, it was almost dark, he could not see the Polish horsemen.

  In Shandarovski, a fiery horseman, the blood began to boil like water in a pot; but he restrained himself and waited till the ranks should be in order. Meanwhile Roh Kovalski put his heavy hand on the shoulder of the youth,—

  “Listen, horsefly!” said he; “have you se
en the king?”

  “I saw him, great mighty lord!” whispered the lad.

  “How did he look? How can he be known?”

  “He is terribly black in the face, and wears red ribbons at his side.”

  “Did you see his horse?”

  “The horse is black, with a white face.”

  “Look out, and show him to me.”

  “I will. But shall we go quickly?”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  Here they were silent; and Roh began to pray to the Most Holy Lady to permit him to meet Karl, and to direct his hand at the meeting.

  The silence continued still a moment, then the horse under Shandarovski himself snorted. At that the horseman on guard looked, quivered as if something had been thrown at his saddle, and fired his pistol.

  “Allah! Allah! Kill, slay! Uha-u, slay!” was heard in the alder grove; and the squadron, coming out of the shadow like lightning, rushed at the Swedes.

  They struck into the smoke before all could turn front to them, and a terrible hewing began; only sabres and rapiers were used, for no man had time to fire. In the twinkle of an eye the Poles pushed the Swedes to the fence, which fell with a rattle under the pressure of the horses’ rumps, and the Poles began to slash them so madly that they were crowded and confused. Twice they tried to close, and twice torn asunder they formed two separate bodies which in a twinkle divided into smaller groups; at last they were scattered as peas thrown by a peasant through the air with a shovel.

  All at once were heard despairing voices: “The king, the king! Save the king!”

  But Karl Gustav, at the first moment of the encounter, with pistols in hand and a sword in his teeth, rushed out. The trooper who held the horse at the door gave him the beast that moment; the king sprang on, and turning the corner, rushed between the poplars and the beehives to escape by the rear from the circle of battle.

  Reaching the fence he spurred his horse, sprang over, and fell into the group of his men who were defending themselves against the right wing of the Poles, who had just surrounded the house and were fighting with the Swedes behind the garden.

  “To the road!” cried Karl Gustav. And overturning with the hilt of his sword the Polish horseman who was raising his sabre above him, with one spring he came out of the whirl of the fight; the Swedes broke the Polish rank and sprang after him with all their force, as a herd of deer hunted by dogs rush whither they are led by their leader.

  The Polish horsemen turned their horses after them, and the chase began. Both came out on the highroad from Rudnik to Boyanovka. They were seen from the front yard where the main battle was raging, and just then it was that the voices were heard crying,—

  “The king, the king! Save the king!”

  But the Swedes in the front yard were so pressed by Shandarovski that they could not think even of saving themselves; the king raced on then with a party of not more than twelve men, while after him were chasing nearly thirty, and at the head of them all Roh Kovalski.

  The lad who was to point out the king was involved somewhere in the general battle, but Roh himself recognized Karl Gustav by the knot of red ribbons. Then he thought that his opportunity had come; he bent in the saddle, pressed his horse with the spurs, and rushed on like a whirlwind.

  The pursued, straining the last strength from their horses, stretched along over the broad road. But the swifter and lighter Polish horses began soon to gain on them. Roh came up very quickly with the hindmost Swede; he rose in his stirrups for a better blow, and cut terribly; with one awful stroke he took off the arm and the shoulder, and rushed on like the wind, fastening his eyes again on the king.

  The next horseman was black before his eyes; he hurled him down. He split the head and the helmet of the third, and tore farther, having the king, and the king only, in his eye. Now the horses of the Swedes began to pant and fall; a crowd of Polish horsemen overtook them and cut down the riders in a twinkle.

  Roh had already passed horses and men, so as not to lose time; the distance between him and Karl Gustav began to decrease. There were only two men between him and the king.

  Now an arrow, sent from a bow by some one of the Poles, sang near the ear of Pan Roh, and sank in the loins of the rider rushing before him. The man trembled to the right and the left; at last he bent backward, bellowed with an unearthly voice, and fell from the saddle.

  Between Roh and the king there was now only one man. But that one, wishing evidently to save the king, instead of helping turned his horse. Kovalski came up, and a cannonball does not sweep a man from the saddle as he hurled him to the ground; then, giving a fearful shout, he rushed forward like a furious stag.

  The king might perhaps have met him, and would have perished inevitably; but others were flying on behind Roh, and arrows began to whistle; any moment one of them might wound his horse. The king, therefore, pressed his heels more closely, bent his head to the mane, and shot through the space in front of him like a sparrow pursued by a hawk.

  But Roh began not only to prick his own horse with the spurs, but to beat him with the side of the sabre; and so they sped on one after the other. Trees, stones, willows, flashed before their eyes; the wind whistled in their ears. The king’s hat fell from his head; at last he threw down his purse, thinking that the pitiless rider might be tempted by it and leave the pursuit; but Kovalski did not look at the purse, and rolled his horse on with more and more power till the beast was groaning from effort.

  Roh had evidently forgotten himself altogether; for racing onward he began to shout in a voice in which besides threats there was also a prayer,—

  “Stop, for God’s mercy!”

  Then the king’s horse stumbled so violently that if the king had not held the bridle with all his power the beast would have fallen. Roh bellowed like an aurochs; the distance dividing him from Karl Gustav had decreased notably.

  After a while the steed stumbled a second time, and again before the king brought him to his feet Roh had approached a number of yards.

  Then he straightened himself in the saddle as if for a blow. He was terrible; his eyes were bursting out, his teeth were gleaming from under his reddish mustaches. One more stumble of the horse, another moment, and the fate of the Commonwealth, of all Sweden, of the entire war would have been decided. But the king’s horse began to run again; and the king, turning, showed the barrels of two pistols, and twice did he fire.

  One of the bullets shattered the knee of Kovalski’s horse; he reared, then fell on his forefeet, and dug the earth with his nose.

  The king might have rushed that moment on his pursuer and thrust him through with his rapier; but at the distance of two hundred yards other Polish horsemen were flying forward; so he bent down again in his saddle, and shot on like an arrow propelled from the bow of a Tartar.

  Kovalski freed himself from his horse. He looked for a while unconsciously at the fleeing man, then staggered like one drunk, sat on the road, and began to roar like a bear.

  But the king was each instant farther, farther, farther! He began to diminish, to melt, and then vanished in the dark belt of pine scrub.

  Meanwhile, with shouting and roaring, came on Kovalski’s companions. There were fifteen of them whose horses held out. One brought the king’s purse, another his hat, on which black ostrich feathers were fastened with diamonds. These two began to cry out,—

  “These are yours, comrade! they belong to you of right.”

  Others asked: “Do you know whom you were chasing? That was Karl himself.”

  “As God is true! In his life he has never fled before any man as before you. You have covered yourself with immense glory!”

  “And how many men did you put down before you came up with the king?”

  “You lacked only little of freeing the Commonwealth in one flash, with your sabre.”

  “Take the purse!”

  “
Take the hat!”

  “The horse was good, but you can buy ten such with these treasures.”