The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  The Swedes too understood this. Every morning officers and soldiers, coming to the shore of the Vistula, looked with despair in their eyes and their hearts at the legions of Charnyetski’s terrible cavalry standing black on the other side.

  Then they went to the San; there again the troops of Sapyeha were watching day and night, ready to receive them with sabre and musket.

  To cross either the San or the Vistula while both armies stood near was not to be thought of. The Swedes might return to Yaroslav by the same road over which they come, but they knew that in that case not one of them would ever see Sweden.

  For the Swedes grievous days and still more grievous nights now began, for these days and nights were uproarious and quarrelsome. Again provisions were at an end.

  Meanwhile Charnyetski, leaving command of the army to Lyubomirski and taking the Lauda squadron as guard crossed the Vistula above the mouth of the San, to visit Sapyeha and take counsel with him touching the future of the war.

  This time the mediation of Zagloba was not needed to make the two leaders agree; for both loved the country more than each one himself, both were ready to sacrifice to it private interests, self-love, and ambition.

  The Lithuanian hetman did not envy Charnyetski, nor did Charnyetski envy the hetman, but each did homage to the other; so the meeting between them was of such character that tears stood in the eyes of the oldest soldiers.

  “The Commonwealth is growing, the dear country is rejoicing, when such sons of heroes take one another by the shoulders,” said Zagloba to Pan Michael and Pan Yan. “Charnyetski is a terrible soldier and a true soul, but put Sapyeha to a wound and it will heal. Would there were more such men! The skin would fly off the Swedes, could they see this love of the greatest patriots. How did they conquer us, if not through the rancor and envy of magnates? Have they overcome us with force? This is how I understand! The soul jumps in a man’s body at sight of such a meeting. I will guarantee, too, that it will not be dry; for Sapyeha loves a feast wonderfully, and with such a friend he will willingly let himself out.”

  “God is merciful! the evil will pass,” said Pan Yan.

  “Be careful that you do not blaspheme,” said Zagloba; “every evil must pass, for should it last forever it would prove that the Devil governs the world, and not the Lord Jesus, who has mercy inexhaustible.”

  Their further conversation was interrupted by the sight of Babinich, whose lofty form they saw from a distance over the wave of other heads.

  Pan Michael and Zagloba began to beckon to him, but he was so much occupied in looking at Charnyetski that he did not notice them at first.

  “See,” said Zagloba, “how thin the man has grown!”

  “It must be that he has not done much against Boguslav,” said Volodyovski; “otherwise he would be more joyful.”

  “It is sure that he has not, for Boguslav is before Marienburg with Steinbock, acting against the fortress.”

  “There is hope in God that he will do nothing.”

  “Even if he should take Marienburg,” said Zagloba, “we will capture Karl Gustav right away; we shall see if they will not give the fortress for the king.”

  “See! Babinich is coming to us!” interrupted Pan Yan.

  He had indeed seen them, and was pushing the crowd to both sides; he motioned with his cap, smiling at them from a distance. They greeted one another as good friends and acquaintances.

  “What is to be heard? What have you done with the prince?” asked Zagloba.

  “Evil, evil! But there is no time to tell of it. We shall sit down to table at once. You will remain here for the night; come to me after the feast to pass the night among my Tartars. I have a comfortable cabin; we will talk at the cups till morning.”

  “The moment a man says a wise thing it is not I who will oppose,” said Zagloba. “But tell us why you have grown so thin?”

  “That hell-dweller overthrew me and my horse like an earthen pot, so that from that time I am spitting fresh blood and cannot recover. There is hope in the mercy of our Lord Christ that I shall let the blood out of him yet. But let us go now, for Sapyeha and Charnyetski are beginning to make declarations and to be ceremonious about precedence,—a sign that the tables are ready. We wait for you here with great pleasure, for you have shed Swedish pig-blood in plenty.”

  “Let others speak of what I have done,” said Zagloba; “it does not become me.”

  Meanwhile whole throngs moved on, and all went to the square between the tents on which were placed tables. Sapyeha in honor of Charnyetski entertained like a king. The table at which Charnyetski was seated was covert with Swedish flags. Mead and wine flowed from vats, so that toward the end both leaders became somewhat joyous. There was no lack of gladsomeness, of jests, of toasts, of noise; though the weather was marvellous, and the sun warm beyond wonder. Finally the cool of the evening separated the feasters.

  Then Kmita took his guests to the Tartars. They sat down in his tent on trunks packed closely with every kind of booty, and began to speak of Kmita’s expedition.

  “Boguslav is now before Marienburg,” said Pan Andrei, “though some say that he is at the elector’s, with whom he is to march to the relief of the king.”

  “So much the better; then we shall meet! You young fellows do not know how to manage him; let us see what the old man will do. He has met with various persons, but not yet with Zagloba. I say that we shall meet, though Prince Yanush in his will advised him to keep far from Zagloba.”

  “The elector is a cunning man,” said Pan Yan; “and if he sees that it is going ill with Karl, he will drop all his promises and his oath.”

  “But I tell you that he will not,” said Zagloba. “No one is so venomous against us as the Prussian. When your servant who had to work under your feet and brush your clothes becomes your master by change of fortune, he will be sterner to you, the kinder you were to him.”

  “But why is that?” asked Pan Michael.

  “His previous condition of service will remain in his mind, and he will avenge himself on you for it, though you have been to him kindness itself.”

  “What of that?” asked Pan Michael. “It often happens that a dog bites his master in the hand. Better let Babinich tell about his expedition.”

  “We are listening,” said Pan Yan.

  Kmita, after he had been silent awhile, drew breath and began to tell of the last campaign of Sapyeha against Boguslav, and the defeat of the latter at Yanov; finally how Prince Boguslav had broken the Tartars, overturned him with his horse, and escaped alive.

  “But,” interrupted Volodyovski, “you said that you would follow him with your Tartars, even to the Baltic.”

  “And you told me also in your time,” replied Kmita, “how Pan Yan here present, when Bogun carried off his beloved maiden, forgot her and revenge because the country was in need. A man becomes like those with whom he keeps company; I have joined you, gentlemen, and I wish to follow your example.”

  “May the Mother of God reward you, as she has Pan Yan!” said Zagloba. “Still I would rather your maiden were in the wilderness than in Boguslav’s hands.”

  “That is nothing!” exclaimed Pan Michael; “you will find her!”

  “I have to find not only her person, but her regard and love.”

  “One will come after the other,” said Pan Michael, “even if you had to take her person by force, as at that time—you remember?”

  “I shall not do such a deed again.”

  Here Pan Andrei sighed deeply, and after a while he said, “Not only have I not found her, but Boguslav has taken another from me.”

  “A pure Turk! as God is dear to me!” cried Zagloba.

  And Pan Yan inquired: “What other?”

  “Oh, it is a long story, a long story,” said Kmita. “There was a maiden in Zamost, wonderfully fair, who pleased Pan Zamoyski. He, fearing Princes
s Vishnyevetski, his sister, did not dare to be over-bold before her; he planned, therefore, to send the maiden away with me, as if to Sapyeha, to find an inheritance in Lithuania, but in reality to take her from me about two miles from Zamost, and put her in some wilderness where no one could stand in his way. But I sounded his intention. You want, thought I to myself, to make a pander of me; wait! I flogged his men, and the lady in all maidenly honor I brought to Sapyeha. Well, I say to you that the girl is as beautiful as a goldfinch, but honest. I am now another man, and my comrades, the Lord light their souls! are long ago dust in the earth.”

  “What sort of maiden was she?” asked Zagloba.

  “From a respectable house, a lady-in-waiting on Princess Griselda. She was once engaged to a Lithuanian, Podbipienta, whom you, gentlemen, knew.”

  “Anusia Borzobogati!” shouted Volodyovski, springing from his place.

  Zagloba jumped up too from a pile of felt “Pan Michael, restrain yourself!”

  But Volodyovski sprang like a cat toward Kmita. “Is it you, traitor, who let Boguslav carry her off?”

  “Be not unjust to me,” said Kmita. “I took her safely to the hetman, having as much care for her as for my own sister. Boguslav seized her, not from me, but from another officer with whom Pan Sapyeha sent her to his own family; his name was Glovbich or something, I do not remember well.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He is no longer living, he was slain; so at least Sapyeha’s officers said. I was attacking Boguslav separately, with the Tartars; therefore I know nothing accurately save what I have told you. But noticing your changed face, I see that a similar thing has met us; the same man has wronged us, and since that is the case let us join against him to avenge the wrong and take vengeance in company. He is a great lord and a great knight, and still I think it will be narrow for him in the whole Commonwealth, if he has two such enemies.”

  “Here is my hand!” said Volodyovski. “Henceforth we are friends for life and death. Whoever meets him first will pay him for both. God grant me to meet him first, for that I will let his blood out is as sure as that there is Amen in ‘Our Father.’”

  Here Pan Michael began to move his mustaches terribly and to feel of his sabre. Zagloba was frightened, for he knew that with Pan Michael there was no joking.

  “I should not care to be Prince Boguslav now,” said he, “even if some one should add Livonia to my title. It is enough to have such a wildcat as Kmita against one, but what will he do with Pan Michael? And that is not all; I will conclude an alliance with you. My head, your sabres! I do not know as there is a potentate in Christendom who could stand against such an alliance. Besides, the Lord God will sooner or later take away his luck, for it cannot be that for a traitor and a heretic there is no punishment; as it is, Kmita has given it to him terribly.”

  “I do not deny that more than one confusion has met him from me,” said Pan Andrei. And giving orders to fill the goblets, he told how he had freed Soroka from captivity. But he did not tell how he had cast himself first at the feet of Radzivill, for at the very thought of that his blood boiled.

  Pan Michael was rejoiced while hearing the narrative, and said at the end,—

  “May God aid you, Yendrek! With such a daring man one could go to hell. The only trouble is that we shall not always campaign together, for service is service. They may send me to one end of the Commonwealth and you to the other. It is not known which will meet him first.”

  Kmita was silent a moment.

  “In justice I should reach him—if only I do not come out again with confusion, for I am ashamed to acknowledge that I cannot meet that hell-dweller hand to hand.”

  “Then I will teach you all my secrets,” said Pan Michael.

  “Or I!” said Zagloba.

  “Pardon me, your grace, I prefer to learn from Michael,” said Kmita.

  “Though he is such a knight, still I and Pani Kovalski are not afraid of him, if only I had a good sleep,” put in Roh.

  “Be quiet, Roh!” answered Zagloba; “may God not punish you through his hand for boasting.”

  “Oh, tfu! nothing will happen to me from him.”

  Poor Kovalski was an unlucky prophet, but it was steaming terribly from his forelock, and he was ready to challenge the whole world to single combat. Others too drank heavily to one another, and to the destruction of Boguslav and the Swedes.

  “I have heard,” said Kmita, “that as soon as we rub out the Swedes here and take the king, we shall march straight to Warsaw. Then surely there will be an end of the war. After that will come the elector’s turn.”

  “Oh, that’s it! that’s it!” said Zagloba.

  “I heard Sapyeha say that once, and he, as a great man, calculates better than others; he said: ‘There will be a truce with the Swedes; with the Northerners there is one already, but with the elector we should not make any conditions. Pan Charnyetski,’ he says, ‘will go with Lyubomirski to Brandenburg, and I with the treasurer of Lithuania to Electoral Prussia; and if after that we do not join Prussia to the Commonwealth, it is because in our chancellery we have no such head as Pan Zagloba, who in autograph letters threatened the elector.’”

  “Did Sapyeha say that?” asked Zagloba, flushing from pleasure.

  “All heard him. And I was terribly glad, for that same rod will flog Boguslav; and if not earlier, we will surely reach him at that time.”

  “If we can finish with these Swedes first,” said Zagloba. “Devil take them! Let them give up Livland and a million, I will let them off alive."‘

  “The Cossack caught the Tartar, and the Tartar is holding him by the head!” said Pan Yan, laughing. “Karl is still in Poland; Cracow, Warsaw, Poznan, and all the most noted towns are in his hands, and father wants him to ransom himself. Hei, we shall have to work much at him yet before we can think of the elector.”

  “And there is Steinbock’s army, and the garrisons, and Wirtz,” put in Pan Stanislav.

  “But why do we sit here with folded hands?” asked Roh Kovalski, on a sudden, with staring eyes; “cannot we beat the Swedes?”

  “You are foolish, Roh,” said Zagloba.

  “Uncle always says one thing; but as I am alive, I saw a boat at the shore. We might go and carry off even the sentry. It is so dark that you might strike a man on the snout and he wouldn’t know who did it; before they could see we should return and exhibit the courage of cavaliers to both commanders. If you do not wish to go, I will go myself.”

  “The dead calf moved his tail, wonder of wonders!” said Zagloba, angrily.

  But Kmita’s nostrils began to quiver at once. “Not a bad idea! not a bad idea!” said he.

  “Good for camp-followers, but not for him who regards dignity. Have respect for yourselves! You are colonels, but you wish to amuse yourselves with wandering thieves!”

  “True, it is not very becoming,” added Volodyovski. “We would better go to sleep.”

  All agreed with that idea; therefore they kneeled down to their prayers and repeated them aloud; after that they stretched themselves on the felt cloth, and were soon sleeping the sleep of the just.

  But an hour later all sprang to their feet, for beyond the river the roaring of guns was heard; while shouts and tumult rose in Sapyeha’s whole camp.

  “Jesus! Mary!” exclaimed Zagloba. “The Swedes are coming!”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Volodyovski, seizing his sabre.

  “Roh, come here!” cried Zagloba, for in cases of surprise he was glad to have his sister’s son near him.

  But Roh was not in the tent.

  They ran out on the square. Crowds were already before the tents, and all were making their way toward the river, for on the other side was to be seen flashing of fire, and an increasing roar was heard.

  “What has happened, what has happened?” was asked of the numerous guards dispose
d along the bank.

  But the guards had seen nothing. One of the soldiers said that he had heard as it were the plash of a wave, but as fog was hanging over the water he could see nothing; he did not wish therefore to raise the camp for a mere sound.

  When Zagloba heard this he caught himself by the head in desperation,—

  “Roh has gone to the Swedes! He said that he wished to carry off a sentry.”

  “For God’s sake, that may be!” cried Kmita.

  “They will shoot the lad, as God is in heaven!” continued Zagloba, in despair. “Worthy gentlemen, is there no help? Lord God, that boy was of the purest gold; there is not another such in the two armies! What shot that idea into his stupid head? Oh, Mother of God, save him in trouble!”