The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Roh gazed at his comrades with dazed eyes; at last he sprang up and shouted,—

  “I am Kovalski, and this is Pani Kovalski! Go to all the devils!”

  “His mind is disturbed!” cried they.

  “Give me a horse! I’ll catch him yet,” shouted Roh.

  But they took him by the arms, and though he struggled they brought him back to Rudnik, pacifying and comforting him along the road.

  “You gave him Peter!” cried they. “See what has come to this victor, this conqueror of so many towns and villages!”

  “Ha, ha! He has found out Polish cavaliers!”

  “He will grow tired of the Commonwealth. He has come to close quarters.”

  “Vivat, Roh Kovalski!”

  “Vivat, vivat, the most manful cavalier, the pride of the whole army!”

  And they fell to drinking out of their canteens. They gave Roh one, and he emptied the bottle at a draught.

  During the pursuit of the king along the Boyanovka road the Swedes defended themselves in front of the priest’s house with bravery worthy of their renowned regiment. Though attacked suddenly and scattered very quickly, they rallied as quickly around their blue standard, for the reason that they were surrounded by a dense crowd. Not one of them asked for quarter, but standing horse to horse, shoulder to shoulder, they thrust so fiercely with their rapiers that for a time victory seemed to incline to their side. It was necessary either to break them again, which became impossible since a line of Polish horsemen surrounded them completely, or to cut them to pieces. Shandarovski recognized the second plan as the better; therefore encircling the Swedes with a still closer ring, he sprang on them like a wounded falcon on a flock of long-billed cranes. A savage slaughter and press began. Sabres rattled against rapiers, rapiers were broken on the hilts of sabres. Sometimes a horse rose, like a dolphin above the sea waves, and in a moment fell in the whirl of men and horses. Shouts ceased; there were heard only the cry of horses, the sharp clash of steel, gasping from the panting breasts of the knights; uncommon fury had mastered the hearts of Poles and Swedes. They fought with fragments of sabres and rapiers; they closed with one another like hawks, caught one another by the hair, by mustaches, gnawed with their teeth; those who had fallen from their horses and were yet able to stand stabbed with their knives horses in the belly and men in the legs; in the smoke, in the steam from horses, in the terrible frenzy of battle, men were turned into giants and gave the blows of giants; arms became clubs, sabres lightning. Steel helmets were broken at a blow, like earthen pots; heads were cleft; arms holding sabres were swept away. They hewed without rest; they hewed without mercy, without pity. From under the whirl of men and horses blood began to flow along the yard in streams.

  The great blue standard was waving yet above the Swedish circle, but the circle diminished with each moment. As when harvesters attack grain from two sides, and the sickles begin to glitter, the standing grain disappears and the men see one another more nearly each moment, thus did the Polish ring become ever narrower, and those fighting on one side could see the bent sabres fighting on the opposite side.

  Pan Shandarovski was wild as a hurricane, and ate into the Swedes as a famished wolf buries his jaws in the flesh of a freshly killed horse; but one horseman surpassed him in fury, and that was the youth who had first let them know that the Swedes were in Rudnik, and now had sprung in with the whole squadron on the enemy. The priest’s colt, three years old, which till that time had walked quietly over the land, shut in by the horses, could not break out of the throng; you would have said he had gone mad, like his master. With ears thrown back, with eyes bursting out of his bead, with erect mane, he pushed forward, bit, and kicked; but the lad struck with his sabre as with a flail; he struck at random, to the right, to the left, straight ahead; his yellow forelock was covered with blood, the points of rapiers had been thrust into his shoulders and legs, his face was cut; but these wounds only roused him. He fought with madness, like a man who has despaired of life and wishes only to avenge his own death.

  But now the Swedish body had decreased like a pile of snow on which men are throwing hot water from every side. At last around the king’s standard less than twenty men remained. The Polish swarm had covered them completely, and they were dying gloomily, with set teeth; no hand was stretched forth, no man asked for mercy. Now in the crowd were heard voices: “Seize the standard! The standard!”

  When he heard this, the lad pricked his colt and rushed on like a flame. When every Swede had two or three Polish horsemen against him, the lad slashed the standard-bearer in the mouth; he opened his arms, and fell on the horse’s mane. The blue standard fell with him.

  The nearest Swede, shouting terribly, grasped after the staff at once; but the boy caught the standard itself, and pulling, tore it off in a twinkle, wound it in a bundle, and holding it with both hands to his breast, began to shout to the sky,—

  “I have it, I won’t give it! I have it, I won’t give it!”

  The last remaining Swedes rushed at him with rage; one thrust the flag through, and cut his shoulder.

  Then a number of men stretched their bloody hands to the lad, and cried: “Give the standard, give the standard!”

  Shandarovski sprang to his aid, and commanded: “Let him alone! He took it before my eyes; let him give it to Charnyetski himself.”

  “Charnyetski is coming!” cried a number of voices.

  In fact, from a distance trumpets were heard; and on the road from the side of the field appeared a whole squadron, galloping to the priest’s house. It was the Lauda squadron; and at the head of it rode Charnyetski himself. When the men had ridden up, seeing that all was over, they halted; and Shandarovski’s soldiers began to hurry toward them.

  Shandarovski himself hastened with a report to the castellan; but he was so exhausted that at first he could not catch breath, for he trembled as in a fever, and the voice broke in his throat every moment.

  “The king himself was here: I don’t know—whether he has escaped!”

  “He has, he has!” answered those who had seen the pursuit.

  “The standard is taken! There are many killed!”

  Charnyetski, without saying a word, hurried to the scene of the struggle, where a cruel and woful sight presented itself. More than two hundred bodies of Swedes and Poles were lying like a pavement, one at the side of the other, and often one above the other. Sometimes one held another by the hair; some had died biting or tearing one another with their nails; and some again were closed as in a brotherly embrace, or they lay one with his head on the breast of his enemy. Many faces were so trampled that there remained nothing human in them; those not crushed by hoofs had their eyes open full of terror, the fierceness of battle, and rage. Blood spattered on the softened earth under the feet of Charnyetski’s horse, which were soon red above the fetlocks; the odor of blood and the sweat of horses irritated the nostrils and stopped breath in the breast.

  The castellan looked on those corpses of men as the agriculturist looks on bound sheaves of wheat which are to fill out his stacks. Satisfaction was reflected on his face. He rode around the priest’s house in silence, looked at the bodies lying on the other side, beyond the garden; then returned slowly to the chief scene.

  “I see genuine work here, and I am satisfied with you, gentlemen.”

  They hurled up their caps with bloody hands.

  “Vivat Charnyetski!”

  “God grant another speedy meeting. Vivat! vivat!”

  And the castellan said: “You will go to the rear for rest. But who took the standard?”

  “Give the lad this way!” cried Shandarovski; “where is he?”

  The soldiers sprang for him, and found him sitting at the wall of the stable near the colt, which had fallen from wounds and was just breathing out his last breath. At the first glance it did not seem that the lad would last long, but he held the stan
dard with both hands to his breast.

  They bore him away at once, and brought him before Charnyetski. The youth stood there barefoot, with disordered hair, with naked breast, his shirt and his jacket in shreds, smeared with Swedish blood and his own, tottering, bewildered, but with unquenched fire in his eyes.

  Charnyetski was astounded at sight of him. “How is this?” asked he. “Did he take the royal standard?”

  “With his own hand and his own blood,” answered Shandarovski. “He was the first also to let us know of the Swedes; and afterward, in the thickest of the whirl, he did so much that he surpassed me and us all.”

  “It is truth, genuine truth, as if some one had written it!” cried others.

  “What is thy name?” asked Charnyetski of the lad.

  “Mihalko.”

  “Whose art thou?”

  “The priest’s.”

  “Thou hast been the priest’s, but thou wilt be thy own!” said Charnyetski.

  Mihalko heard not the last words, for from his wounds and the loss of blood he tottered and fell, striking the castellan’s stirrup with his head.

  “Take him and give him every care. I am the guaranty that at the first Diet he will be the equal of you all in rank, as to-day he is the equal in spirit.”

  “He deserves it! he deserves it!” cried the nobles.

  Then they took Mihalko on a stretcher, and bore him to the priest’s house.

  Charnyetski listened to the further report, which not Shandarovski gave, but those who had seen the pursuit of the king by Roh Kovalski. He was wonderfully delighted with that narrative, so that he caught his head, and struck his thighs with his hands; for he understood that after such an adventure the spirit must fall considerably in Karl Gustav.

  Zagloba was not less delighted, and putting his hands on his hips, said proudly to the knights,—

  “Ha! he is a robber, isn’t he? If he had reached Karl, the devil himself could not have saved the king! He is my blood, as God is dear to me, my blood!”

  In course of time Zagloba believed that he was Roh Kovalski’s uncle.

  Charnyetski gave orders to find the young knight; but they could not find him, for Roh, from shame and mortification, had crept into a barn, and burying himself in the straw, had fallen asleep so soundly that he came up with the squadron only two days later. But he still suffered greatly, and dared not show himself before the eyes of his uncle. His uncle, however, sought him out, and began to comfort him,—

  “Be not troubled, Roh!” said he. “As it is, you have covered yourself with great glory; I have myself heard the castellan praise you: ‘To the eye a fool,’ said he, ‘so that he looks as though he could not count three, and I see that he is a fiery cavalier who has raised the reputation of the whole army.’”

  “The Lord Jesus has not blessed me,” said Roh; “for I got drunk the day before, and forgot my prayers.”

  “Don’t try to penetrate the judgments of God, lest you add blasphemy to other deeds. Whatever you can take on your shoulders take, but take nothing on your mind; if you do, you will fail.”

  “Rut I was so near that the sweat from his horse was flying to me. I should have cut him to the saddle! Uncle thinks that I have no reason whatever!”

  “Every creature,” said Zagloba, “has its reason. You are a sprightly lad, Roh, and you will give me comfort yet more than once. God grant your sons to have the same reason in their fists that you have!”

  “I do not want that! I am Kovalski, and this is Pani Kovalski.”

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  After the affair at Rudnik the king advanced farther toward the point of the wedge between the San and the Vistula, and did not cease as before to march with the rearguard; for he was not only a famous leader, but a knight of unrivalled daring. Charnyetski, Vitovski, and Lyubomirski followed, and urged him on as a wild beast is urged to a trap. Detached parties made an uproar night and day around the Swedes. The retreating troops had less and less provisions; they were more and more wearied and drooping in courage, looking forward to certain destruction.

  At last the Swedes enclosed themselves in the very corner where the two rivers meet, and rested. On one side the Vistula defended them, on the other the San, both overflowed, as usual in springtime; the third side of the triangle the king fortified with strong intrenchments, in which cannons were mounted.

  That was a position not to be taken, but it was possible to die there from hunger. But even in that regard the Swedes gained better courage, for they hoped that the commandants would send them provisions by water from Cracow and other river fortresses. For instance, right there at hand was Sandomir, in which Colonel Schinkler had collected considerable supplies. He sent these in at once; therefore the Swedes ate, drank, slept; and when they woke they sang Lutheran psalms, praising God that he had saved them from such dire distress.

  But Charnyetski was preparing new blows for them.

  Sandomir in Swedish hands could always come to the aid of the main army. Charnyetski planned, therefore, to take the town with the castle at a blow, and cut off the Swedes.

  “We will prepare a cruel spectacle for them,” said he, at a council of war. “They will look on from the opposite bank when we strike the town, and they will not be able to give aid across the Vistula; and when we have Sandomir we will not let provisions come from Wirtz in Cracow.”

  Lyubomirski, Vitovski, and others tried to dissuade Charnyetski from that undertaking. “It would be well,” said they, “to take such a considerable town, and we might injure the Swedes greatly; but how are we to take it? We have no infantry, siege guns we have not; it would be hard for cavalry to attack walls.”

  “But do our peasants,” asked Charnyetski, “fight badly as infantry? If I had two thousand such as Mihalko, I would take not only Sandomir, but Warsaw.”

  And without listening to further counsel he crossed the Vistula. Barely had his summons gone through the neighborhood when a couple of thousand men hurried to him, one with a scythe, another with a musket, the third with carabine; and they marched against Sandomir.

  They fell upon the place rather suddenly, and in the streets a fierce conflict set in. The Swedes defended themselves furiously from the windows and the roofs, but they could not withstand the onrush. They were crushed like worms in the houses, and pushed entirely out of the town. Schinkler took refuge, with the remnant of his forces, in the castle; but the Poles followed him with the same impetuosity. A storm against the gates and the walls began, Schinkler saw that he could not hold out, even in the castle; so he collected what he could of men, articles and supplies of provisions, and putting them on boats, crossed to the king, who looked from the other bank on the defeat of his men without being able to succor them.

  The castle fell into the hands of the Poles; but the cunning Swede when departing put under the walls in the cellars kegs of powder with lighted matches.

  When he appeared before the king he told him of this at once, so as to rejoice his heart.

  “The castle,” said he, “will fly into the air with all the men. Charnyetski may perish.”

  “If that is true, I want myself to see how the pious Poles will fly to heaven,” said the king; and he remained on the spot with all the generals.

  In spite of the commands of Charnyetski, who foresaw deceit, the volunteers and the peasants ran around through the whole castle to seek hidden Swedes and treasure. The trumpets sounded an alarm for every man to take refuge in the town; but the searchers in the castle did not hear the trumpets, or would not heed them.

  All at once the ground trembled under their feet, an awful thunder and a roar tore the air, a gigantic pillar of fire rose to the sky, hurling upward earth, walls, roofs, the whole castle, and more than five hundred bodies of those who had not been able to withdraw.

  Karl Gustav held his sides from delight, and his favor-seeking courtiers began at onc
e to repeat his words: “The Poles are going to heaven, to heaven!”

  But that joy was premature; for none the less did Sandomir remain in Polish hands, and could no longer furnish food for the main army enclosed between the rivers.

  Charnyetski disposed his camp opposite the Swedes, on the other side of the Vistula, and guarded the passage.

  Sapyeha, grand hetman of Lithuania and voevoda of Vilna, came from the other side and took his position on the San.

  The Swedes were invested completely; they were caught as it were in a vise.

  “The trap is closed!” said the soldiers to one another in the Polish camps.

  For every man, even the least acquainted with military art, understood that inevitable destruction was hanging over the invaders, unless reinforcements should come in time and rescue them from trouble.