The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Here the sluices were opened in the eyes of Zagloba, and he began to sob time after time; then he turned suddenly to Roh,—

  “Be silent! what are you whimpering about?”

  “And is Uncle not whimpering?” answered Roh.

  “True, as God is dear to me!—I was ashamed, gracious gentlemen, of this Commonwealth. But now I would not change with any nation! A hundred thousand sabres,—let others show the like. God has brought them to their minds; God has given this, God has given it!”

  Zagloba had not made a great mistake, for really there were nearly seventy thousand men at Warsaw, not counting Charnyetski’s division, which had not arrived yet, and not counting the armed camp attendants who rendered service when necessary, and who straggled after every camp in countless multitudes.

  After the greeting and a hurried review of the troops, the king thanked Sapyeha’s men, amid universal enthusiasm, for their faithful services, and went to Uyazdov. The troops occupied the positions assigned them. Some squadrons remained in Praga; others disposed themselves around the city. A gigantic train of wagons continued to cross the Vistula till the following midday.

  Next morning the suburbs of the city were as white with tents as if they had been covered with snow. Countless herds of horses were neighing on the adjoining meadows. After the army followed a crowd of Armenians, Jews, Tartars; another city, more extensive and tumultuous than that which was besieged, grew up on the plain.

  The Swedes, amazed during the first days at the power of the King of Poland, made no sorties, so that Pan Grodzitski, general of artillery, could ride around the city quietly and form his plan of siege.

  On the following day the camp attendants began to raise intrenchments here and there, according to Grodzitski’s plan; they placed on them at once the smaller cannon, for the larger ones were to appear only a couple of weeks later.

  Yan Kazimir sent a message to old Wittemberg summoning him to surrender the city and lay down his arms, giving favorable conditions, which, when known, roused discontent in the army. That discontent was spread mainly by Zagloba, who had a special hatred of the Swedish commander.

  Wittemberg, as was easy to foresee, rejected the conditions and resolved on a defence to continue till the last drop of blood was shed, and to bury himself in the ruins of the city rather than yield it to the king. The size of the besieging army did not frighten him a whit, for he knew that an excessive number was rather a hindrance than help in a siege. He was informed also in good season that in the camp of Yan Kazimir there was not one siege gun, while the Swedes had more than enough of them, not taking into consideration their inexhaustible supply of ammunition.

  It was in fact to be foreseen that they would defend themselves with frenzy, for Warsaw had served them hitherto as a storehouse for booty. All the immense treasures looted in castles, in churches, in cities, in the whole Commonwealth, came to the capital, whence they were despatched in parties to Prussia, and farther to Sweden. But at the present time, when the whole country had risen, and castles defended by the smaller Swedish garrisons did not insure safety, booty was brought to Warsaw all the more. The Swedish soldier was more ready to sacrifice his life than his booty. A poor people who had seized the treasures of a wealthy land had acquired the taste of them to such a degree that the world had never seen more grasping robbers. The king himself had grown famous for greed; the generals followed his example, and Wittemberg surpassed them all. When it was a question of gain, neither the honor of a knight nor consideration for the dignity of rank restrained officers. They seized, they extorted, they skinned everything that could be taken. In Warsaw itself colonels of high office and noble birth were not ashamed to sell spirits and tobacco to their own soldiers, so as to cram their purses with the pay of the army.

  This too might rouse the Swedes to fury in defence, that their foremost men were at that time in Warsaw. First was Wittemberg himself, next in command to Karl Gustav. He was the first who had entered the Commonwealth and brought it to decline at Uistsie. In return for that service a triumph was prepared for him in Sweden as for a conqueror. In the city was Oxenstiern, the chancellor, a statesman renowned throughout the world, respected for honesty even by his enemies. He was called the Minerva of the king. To his counsel Karl was indebted for all his victories in negotiation. In the capital was also Wrangel, the younger Horn, Erickson, the second Löwenhaupt, and many Swedish ladies of high birth, who had followed their husbands to the country as to a new Swedish colony.

  The Swedes had something to defend. Yan Kazimir understood, therefore, that the siege, especially through the lack of heavy guns on his side, would be long and bloody. The hetmans understood this also, but the army would not think of it. Barely had Grodzitski raised the intrenchments in some fashion, barely had he pushed forward somewhat to the walls, when deputations went from all the squadrons to ask the king to permit volunteers to storm the walls. The king had to explain to them a long time that fortresses were not taken with sabres, before he could restrain their ardor.

  Meanwhile the works were pushed forward as rapidly as possible. The troops, not being able to storm, took eager part with the camp servants in raising these works; men from the foremost regiments, nay, even officers brought earth in wheelbarrows, carried fascines, labored. More than once the Swedes tried to hinder, and not a day passed without sorties; but barely were the Swedish musketeers outside the gate, when the Poles, working at the intrenchments, throwing aside wheelbarrows, bundles of twigs, spades and pickaxes, ran with sabres into the smoke so furiously that the Swedes had to hide in the fortress with all haste. In these engagements bodies fell thickly; the fosses and the open space as far as the intrenchments were full of graves, in which were placed sometimes small bundles of the weapons of the dead. At last even time failed for burial, so that bodies lay on the ground spreading a terrible odor around the city and the besiegers.

  In spite of the greatest difficulty citizens stole forth to the king’s camp every day, reporting what happened in the city, and imploring on their knees to hasten the storm. The Swedes, they said, had a plenty of provisions as yet, but the people were dying of hunger on the streets; they lived in want, in oppression under the terrible hand of the garrison. Every day echoes brought to the Polish camp sounds of musket-shots in the city, and fugitives brought intelligence that the Swedes were shooting citizens suspected of good-will to Yan Kazimir. The hair stood on end at the stories of the fugitives. They said that the whole population, sick women, newly born infants, old men, all lived at night on the streets, for the Swedes had driven them from their houses, and made passages from wall to wall, so that the garrison, in case Yan Kazimir’s troops should enter, might withdraw and defend themselves. Rains fell on the people in their camping-places; on clear days the sun burned them, at night the cold pinched them. Citizens were not allowed to kindle fires; they had no means of preparing warm food. Various diseases spread more and more, and carried away hundreds of victims.

  Yan Kazimir’s heart was ready to burst when he heard these narratives. He sent therefore courier after courier to hasten the coming of the heavy guns. Days and weeks passed; but it was impossible to undertake anything more important than the repulse of sorties. Still the besiegers were strengthened by the thought that the garrison must fail of provisions at last, since the roads were blocked in such fashion that a mouse could not reach the fortress. The besieged lost hope of assistance; the troops under Douglas, which were posted nearest, were not only unable to come to the rescue, but had to think of their own skin; for Yan Kazimir, having even too many men, was able to harass them.

  At last the Poles, even before the coming of the heavy guns, opened on the fortress with the smaller ones. Pan Grodzitski from the side of the Vistula, raised in front of himself, like a mole, earth defences, pushed to within six yards of the moat, and vomited a continual fire on the unfortunate city. The magnificent Kazanovski Palace was ruined; and the Poles did not regre
t it, for the building belonged to the traitor Radzeyovski. The shattered walls were barely standing, shining with their empty windows; day and night balls were dropping on the splendid terraces and in the gardens, smashing the beautiful fountains, bridges, arbors, and marble statues, terrifying the peacocks which with pitiful screams gave notice of their unhappy condition.

  Pan Grodzitski hurled fire on the Bernardine bell-tower, for he had decided to begin the assault on that side.

  Meanwhile the camp servants begged permission to attack the city, for they wished greatly to reach the Swedish treasures earliest. The king refused at first, but finally consented. A number of prominent officers undertook to lead them, and among others Kmita, who was imbittered by delay, and not only that, but in general he knew not what to do with himself; for Hassling, having fallen into a grievous fever, lay without consciousness for some weeks and could speak of nothing.

  Men therefore were summoned to the storm. Grodzitski opposed this to the last moment, insisting that until a breach was made the city could not be taken, even though the regular infantry were to go to the assault. But as the king had given permission, Grodzitski was forced to yield.

  June 15, about six thousand camp servants assembled; ladders, bundles of brush, and bags of sand were prepared. Toward evening a throng, barefoot and armed for the greater part only with sabres, began to approach the city where the trenches and earth defences came nearest the moat. When it had become perfectly dark, the men rushed, at a given signal, toward the moat with a terrible uproar, and began to fill it. The watchful Swedes received them with a murderous fire from muskets and cannons, and a furious battle sprang up along the whole eastern side of the city. Under cover of darkness the Poles filled the moat in a twinkle and reached the walls in an orderless mass. Kmita, with two thousand men, fell upon an earth fort, which the Poles called “the mole-hill,” and which stood near the Cracow gate. In spite of a desperate defence he captured this place at a blow; the garrison was cut to pieces with sabres, not a man was spared. Pan Andrei gave command to turn the guns on the gate and some of them to the farther walls, so as to aid and cover somewhat those crowds who were striving to scale the walls.

  These men, however, were not so fortunate. They put the ladders in position, and ascended them so furiously that the best trained infantry could not have done better; but the Swedes, safe behind battlements, fired into their very faces, and hurled stones and blocks prepared for the purpose; under the weight of these the ladders were broken into pieces, and at last the infantry pushed down the assaulters with long spears, against which sabres had no effect.

  More than five hundred of the best camp servants were lying at the foot of the wall; the rest passed the moat under an incessant fire, and took refuge again in the Polish intrenchments.

  The storm was repulsed, but the little fort remained in the hands of the Poles. In vain did the Swedes roll at it all night from their heaviest guns; Kmita answered them in like manner from those cannon which he had captured. Only in the morning, when light came, were his guns dismounted to the last one. Wittemberg, for whom that intrenchment was as his head, sent infantry at once with the order not to dare return without retaking what had been lost; but Grodzitski sent reinforcements to Kmita, by the aid of which he not only repulsed the infantry, but fell upon and drove them to the Cracow gate.

  Grodzitski was so delighted that he ran in person to the king with the report.

  “Gracious Lord,” said he, “I was opposed to yesterday’s work, but now I see that it was not lost. While that intrenchment was in the enemy’s hands I could do nothing against the gate; but now only let the heavy guns come, and in one night I will make a breach.”

  The king, who was grieved that so many good men had fallen, was rejoiced at Grodzitski’s words, and asked at once,—

  “But who has command in that intrenchment?”

  “Pan Babinich,” answered a number of voices.

  The king clapped his hands. “He must be first everywhere! Worthy General, I know him. He is a terribly stubborn cavalier, and will not let himself be smoked out.”

  “It would be a mistake beyond forgiveness, Gracious Lord, if we should permit that. I have already sent him infantry and small cannon; for that they will try to smoke him out is certain. It is a question of Warsaw! That cavalier is worth his weight in gold.”

  “He is worth more; for this is not his first, and not his tenth achievement,” said the king.

  Then Yan Kazimir gave orders to bring quickly a horse and a field-glass, and he rode out to look at the earthwork. But it was not to be seen from behind the smoke, for a number of forty-eight-pounders were blowing on it with ceaseless fire; they hurled long balls, bombs, and grape-shot. Still the intrenchment was so near the gate that musket-balls almost reached it; the bomb-shells could be seen perfectly when they flew up like cloudlets, and, describing a closely bent bow, fell into that cloud of smoke, bursting with terrible explosion. Many fell beyond the intrenchment, and they prevented the approach of reinforcements.

  “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!” said the king. “Tyzenhauz, look! A pile of torn earth is all that remains. Tyzenhauz, do you know who is there?”

  “Gracious King, Babinich is there. If he comes out living, he will be able to say that he was in hell during life.”

  “We must send him fresh men. Worthy General—”

  “The orders are already given, but it is difficult for them to go, since bombs pass over and fall very thickly on this side of the fort.”

  “Turn all the guns on the walls so as to make a diversion,” said the king.

  Grodzitski put spurs to his horse and galloped to the trenches. After a while cannonading was heard on the whole line, and somewhat later it was seen that a fresh division of Mazovian infantry went out of the nearest trenches, and on a run to the mole-hill.

  The king stood there, looking continually. At last he cried: “Babinich should be relieved in the command. And who, gentlemen, will volunteer to take his place?”

  Neither Pan Yan, Pan Stanislav, nor Volodyovski was near the king, therefore a moment of silence followed.

  “I!” said suddenly Pan Topor Grylevski, an officer of the light squadron of the primate.

  “I!” said Tyzenhauz.

  “I! I! I!” called at once a number of voices.

  “Let the man go who offered himself first,” said the king.

  Pan Topor Grylevski made the sign of the cross, raised the canteen to his mouth, then galloped away.

  The king remained looking at the cloud of smoke with which the mole-hill was covered, and the smoke rose above it like a bridge up to the very wall. Since the fort was near the Vistula, the walls of the city towered above it, and therefore the fire was terrible.

  Meanwhile the thunder of cannon decreased somewhat, though the balls did not cease to describe arcs, and a rattle of musketry was given out as if thousands of men were beating threshing-floors with flails.

  “It is evident that they are going to the attack again,” said Tyzenhauz. “If there were less smoke, we should see the infantry.”

  “Let us approach a little,” said the king, urging his horse.

  After him others moved on, and riding along the bank of the Vistula from Uyazdov they approached almost to the Solets itself; and since the gardens of the palaces and the cloisters coming down to the Vistula had been cleared by the Swedes in the winter for fuel, trees did not cover the view, they could see even without field-glasses that the Swedes were really moving again to the storm.

  “I would rather lose that position,” said the king all at once, “than that Babinich should die.”

  “God will defend him!” said the priest Tsyetsishovski.

  “And Pan Grodzitski will not fail to send him reinforcements,” added Tyzenhauz.

  Further conversation was interrupted by some horseman who was approaching from
the direction of the city at all speed. Tyzenhauz, having such sight that he saw better with the naked eye than others through field-glasses, caught his head at sight of him, and said,—

  “Grylevski is returning! It must be that Kmita has fallen, and the fort is captured.”

  The king shaded his eyes with his hands. Grylevski rushed up, reined in his horse, and, panting for breath, exclaimed,—

  “Gracious Lord!”

  “What has happened? Is he killed?” asked the king.

  “Pan Babinich says that he is well, and does not wish any one to take his place; he begs only to send him food, for he has had nothing to eat since morning.”

  “Is he alive then?” cried the king.

  “He says that he is comfortable there!” repeated Grylevski.