The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “Are those monkeys or devils?” said Zagloba to himself.

  Suddenly anger seized him, courage swelled in his breast, and raising his sabre he fell upon the cage.

  A terrible panic was the answer to the first blow of his sabre. The monkeys, which the Swedish soldiers had treated kindly and fed from their own slender rations, fell into such a fright that madness simply seized them; and since Zagloba stopped their exit, they began to rush through the cage with unnatural springs, hanging to the sides, to the top, screaming and biting. At last one in frenzy sprang on Zagloba’s shoulder, and seizing him by the head, fastened to it with all his power; another hung to his right shoulder, a third caught him in front by the neck, the fourth hung to his long split sleeves which were tied together behind; and Zagloba, stifled, sweating, struggled in vain, in vain struck blindly toward the rear. Breath soon failed him, his eyes were standing out of his head, and he began to cry with despairing voice,—

  “Gracious gentlemen! save me!”

  The cry brought a number of men, who, unable to understand what was happening, rushed to his aid with blood-streaming sabres; but they halted at once in astonishment, they looked at one another, and as if under the influence of some spell they burst out in one great laugh. More soldiers ran up, a crowd was formed; but laughter was communicated to all as an epidemic. They staggered as if drunk, they held their sides; their faces, besmeared with the gore of men, were twisting spasmodically, and the more Zagloba struggled the more did they laugh. Now Roh Kovalski ran down from an upper story, scattered the crowd, and freed his uncle from the Simian embraces.

  “You rascals!” cried the panting Zagloba, “I would you were slain! You are laughing to see a Catholic in oppression from these African monsters. I would you were slain! Were it not for me you would be butting your heads to this moment against the gate, for you deserve nothing better. I wish you were dead, because you are not worth these monkeys.”

  “I wish you were dead yourself, king of the monkeys!” cried the man standing nearest.

  “Simiarum destructor (destroyer of monkeys)!” cried another.

  “Victor!” cried the third.

  “What, victor! he is victus (conquered)!”

  Here Roh Kovalski came again to the aid of his uncle, and struck the nearest man in the breast with his fist; the man dropped to the earth that instant with blood coming from his mouth. Others retreated before the anger of Kovalski, some drew their sabres; but further disputes were interrupted by the uproar and shots coming from the Bernardines’ Church. Evidently the storm continued there yet in full force, and judging from the feverish musketry-tire, the Swedes were not thinking of surrender.

  “With succor! to the church! to the church!” cried Zagloba.

  He sprang himself to the top of the palace; there, from the right wing, was to be seen the church, which seemed to be in flames. Crowds of stormers were circling around it convulsively, not being able to enter and perishing for nothing in a cross tire; for bullets were rained on them from the Cracow gate as thickly as sand.

  “Cannon to the windows!” shouted Zagloba.

  There were guns enough, large and small, in the Kazanovski Palace, therefore they were drawn to the windows; from fragments of costly furniture and pedestals of statues, platforms were constructed; and in the course of half an hour a number of guns were looking, out through the empty openings of the windows toward the church.

  “Roh!” said Zagloba, with uncommon irritation, “I must do something considerable, or my glory is lost through those monkeys,—would that the plague had stifled them! The whole army will ridicule me; and though there is no lack of words in my mouth, still I cannot meet the whole world. I must wipe away this confusion, or wide as this Commonwealth is they will herald me through it as king of the monkeys!”

  “Uncle must wipe away this confusion!” repeated Roh, with a thundering voice.

  “And the first means will be that, as I have captured the Kazanovski Palace,—for let any one say that it was not I who did it—”

  “Let any one say that it was not Uncle who did it!” repeated Roh.

  “I will capture that church, so help me the Lord God, amen!” concluded Zagloba.

  Then he turned to his attendants who were there at the guns,—

  “Fire!”

  Fear seized the Swedes, who were defending themselves with despair in the church, when the whole side wall began on a sudden to tremble. Bricks, rubbish, lime, fell on those who were sitting in the windows, at the port-holes, on the fragments of the inside cornices, at the pigeon-holes, through which they were firing at the besiegers. A terrible dust rose in the house of God, and mixed with the smoke began to stifle the wearied men. One man could not see another in the darkness. Cries of “I am suffocating, I am suffocating!” still increased the terror. The noise of balls falling through the windows, of leaden lattice falling to the floor, the heat, the exhalations from bodies, turned the retreat of God into a hell upon earth. The frightened soldiers stood aside from entrances, windows, and port-holes. The panic is changed into frenzy. Again terrified voices call: “I am suffocating! Air! Water!” Hundreds of voices begin to roar,—

  “A white flag! a white flag!”

  Erskine, who is commanding, seizes the flag with his own hand to display it outside. At that moment the entrance bursts, a line of stormers rush in like an avalanche of Satans, and a slaughter follows. There is sudden silence in the church; there is heard only the beast-like panting of the strugglers, the bite of steel on bones, and on the stone floor groans, the patter of blood; and at times some voice in which there is nothing human cries, “Quarter! Quarter!” After an hour’s fighting the bell on the tower begins to thunder, and thunders, thunders,—to the victory of the Mazovians, to the funeral of the Swedes.

  The Kazanovski Palace, the cloister, and the bell-tower are captured.

  Pyotr Opalinski himself, the voevoda of Podlyasye, appeared in the blood-stained throng before the palace on his horse.

  “Who came to our aid from the palace?” cried he, wishing to outcry the sound and the roar of men.

  “He who captured the palace!” said a powerful man, appearing before the voevoda,—"I!”

  “What is your name?”

  “Zagloba.”

  “Vivat Zagloba!” bellowed thousands of throats.

  But the terrible Zagloba pointed with his stained sabre toward the gate,—

  “We have not done enough yet. Turn the cannon toward the wall and against the gate. Advance! follow me!”

  The mad throng rush in the direction of the gate. Meanwhile, oh wonder! the fire of the Swedes instead of increasing is growing weak. At the same moment some voice unexpected and piercing cries from the top of the bell-tower,—

  “Charnyetski is in the city! I see our squadrons!”

  The Swedish fire was weakening more and more.

  “Halt! halt!” commanded the voevoda.

  But the throng did not hear him and rushed at random. That moment a white flag appeared on the Cracow gate.

  In truth, Charnyetski, having forced his way through Dantzig House, rushed like a hurricane into the precincts of the fortress; when the Danillovich Palace was taken, and when a moment later the Lithuanian colors glittered on the walls near the Church of the Holy Ghost, Wittemberg saw that further resistance was vain. The Swedes might defend themselves yet in the lofty houses of Old and New City; but the inhabitants had already taken arms, and the defence would end in a terrible slaughter of the Swedes without hope of victory.

  The trumpeters began then to sound on the walls and to wave white flags. Seeing this, the Polish commanders withheld the storm. General Löwenhaupt, attended by a number of colonels, went out through the gate of New City, and rushed with all breath to the king.

  Yan Kazimir had the city in his hands now; but the kind king wished to stop the flow of Christian b
lood, therefore he settled on the conditions offered to Wittemberg at first. The city was to be surrendered, with all the booty collected in it. Each Swede was permitted to take with him only what he had brought from Sweden. The garrison with all the generals and with arms in hand were to march out of the city, taking their sick and wounded and the Swedish ladies, of whom a number of tens were in Warsaw. To the Poles who were serving with the Swedes, amnesty was given, with the idea that surely none were serving of their own will. Boguslav Radzivill alone was excepted. To this Wittemberg agreed the more readily since the prince was at that moment with Douglas on the Bug.

  The conditions were signed at once. All the bells in the churches announced to the city and the world that the capital had passed again into the hands of its rightful monarch. An hour later a multitude of the poorest people came out from behind the walls, seeking charity and bread in the Polish camp; for all in the city except the Swedes were in want of food. The king commanded to give what was possible, and went himself to look at the departure of the Swedish garrison.

  He was surrounded by church and lay dignitaries, by a suite so splendid that it dazzled the people. Nearly all the troops—that is, the troops of the kingdom under the hetmans, Charnyetski’s division, the Lithuanians under Sapyeha, and an immense crowd of general militia, together with the camp servants—assembled around his Majesty; or all were curious to see those Swedes with whom a few hours before they had fought so terribly and bloodily. Polish commissioners were posted at all the gates, from the moment of signing the conditions; these commissioners were intrusted with the duty of seeing that the Swedes bore off no booty. A special commission was occupied with receiving the booty in the city itself.

  In the van came the cavalry, which was not numerous, especially since Boguslav’s men were excluded from the right of departure; next came the field artillery with light guns; the heavy pieces were given to the Poles. The men marched at the sides of the guns with lighted matches. Before them waved their unfurled flags, which as a mark of honor were lowered before the Polish king, recently a wanderer. The artillerists marched proudly, looking straight into the eyes of the Polish knights, as if they wished to say, “We shall meet again!” And the Poles wondered at their haughty bearing and courage unbent by misfortune. Then appeared the wagons with officers and wounded. In the first one lay Benedikt Oxenstiern the chancellor, before whom Yan Kazimir had commanded the infantry to present arms, wishing to show that he knew how to respect virtue even in an enemy.

  Then to the sound of drums, and with waving flags, marched the quadrangle of unrivalled Swedish infantry, resembling, according to the expression of Suba Gazi, moving castles. After them advanced a brilliant party of cavalry, armored from foot to head, and with a blue banner on which a golden lion was embroidered. These surrounded the chief of staff. At sight of them a murmur passed through the crowd,—

  “Wittemberg is coming! Wittemberg is coming!”

  In fact, the field-marshal himself was approaching; and with him the younger Wrangel, Horn, Erskine, Löwenhaupt, Forgell. The eyes of the Polish knights were turned with eagerness toward them, and especially toward the face of Wittemberg. But his face did not indicate such a terrible warrior as he was in reality. It was an aged face, pale, emaciated by disease. He had sharp features, and above his mouth a thin, small mustache turned up at the ends. The pressed lips and long, pointed nose gave him the appearance of an old and grasping miser. Dressed in black velvet and with a black hat on his head, he looked more like a learned astrologer or a physician; and only the gold chain on his neck, the diamond star on his breast, and a field-marshal’s baton in his hand showed his high office of leader.

  Advancing, he cast his eyes unquietly on the king, on the king’s staff, on the squadrons standing in rank; then his eyes took in the immense throngs of the general militia, and an ironical smile came out on his pale lips.

  But in those throngs a murmur was rising ever greater, and the word “Wittemberg! Wittemberg!” was in every mouth.

  After a while the murmur changed into deep grumbling, but threatening, like the grumbling of the sea before a storm. From instant to instant it was silent; and then far away in the distance, in the last ranks, was heard some voice in peroration. This voice was answered by others; greater numbers answered them; they were heard ever louder and spread more widely, like ominous echoes. You would swear that a storm was coming from a distance, and that it would burst with all power.

  The officers were anxious and began to look at the king with disquiet.

  “What is that? What does that mean?” asked Yan Kazimir.

  Then the grumbling passed into a roar as terrible as if thunders had begun to wrestle with one another in the sky. The immense throng of general militia moved violently, precisely like standing grain when a hurricane is sweeping around it with giant wing. All at once some tens of thousands of sabres were glittering in the sun.

  “What is that? What does that mean?” asked the king, repeatedly.

  No one could answer him. Then Volodyovski, standing near Sapyeha, exclaimed: “That is Pan Zagloba!”

  Volodyovski had guessed aright. The moment the conditions of surrender were published and had come to the ears of Zagloba, the old noble fell into such a terrible rage that speech was taken from him for a while. When he came to himself his first act was to spring among the ranks of the general militia and fire up the minds of the nobles. They heard him willingly; for it seemed to all that for so much bravery, for such toil, for so much bloodshed under the walls of Warsaw, they ought to have a better vengeance against the enemy. Therefore great circles of chaotic and stormy men surrounded Zagloba, who threw live coals by the handful on the powder, and with his speech fanned into greater proportions the fire which all the more easily seized their heads, that they were already smoking from the usual libations consequent on victory.

  “Gracious gentlemen!” said he, “behold these old hands have toiled fifty years for the country; fifty years have they been shedding the blood of the enemy at every wall of the Commonwealth; and to-day—I have witnesses—they captured the Kazanovski Palace and the Bernardines’ Church! And when, gracious gentlemen, did the Swedes lose heart, when did they agree to capitulate? It was when we turned our guns from the Bernardines to the Old City. We have not spared our blood, brothers; it has been shed bountifully, and no one has been spared but the enemy. But we, brothers, have left our lands without masters, our servants without lords, our wives without husbands, our children without fathers,—oh, my dear children, what is happening to you now?—and we have come here with our naked breasts against cannon. And what is our reward for so doing? This is it: Wittemberg goes forth free, and besides, they give him honor for the road. The executioner of our country departs, the blasphemer of religion departs; the raging enemy of the Most Holy Lady, the burner of our houses, the thief of our last bit of clothing, the murderer of our wives and children,—oh, my children, where are you now?—the disgracer of the clergy and virgins consecrated to God! Woe to thee, country! Shame to you, nobles! A new agony is awaiting you. Oh, our holy faith! Woe to you, suffering churches! weeping to thee and complaint, O Chenstohova! for Wittemberg is departing in freedom, and will return soon to press out tears and blood, to finish killing those whom he has not yet killed, to burn that which he has not yet burned, to put shame on that which he has not yet put to shame! Weep, O Poland and Lithuania! Weep, ranks of people, as I weep,—an old soldier who, descending to the grave, must look on your agony! Woe to thee, Ilion, the city of aged Priam! Woe! woe! woe!”

  So spoke Zagloba; and thousands listened to him, and wrath raised the hair on the heads of the nobles; but he moved on farther. Again he complained, tore his clothing, and laid bare his breast. He entered also into the army, which gave a willing ear to his complaints; for, in truth, there was a terrible animosity in all hearts against Wittemberg. The tumult would have burst out at once; but Zagloba himself restrained it, lest, if
it burst too early, Wittemberg might save himself somehow; but if it broke out when he was leaving the city and would show himself to the general militia, they would bear him apart on their sabres before any one could see what was done.

  And his reckoning was justified. At sight of the tyrant frenzy seized the brains of the chaotic and half-drunken nobles, and a terrible storm burst forth in the twinkle of an eye. Forty thousand sabres were flashing in the sun, forty thousand throats began to bellow,—

  “Death to Wittemberg! Give him here! Make mince-meat of him! make mince-meat of him!”

  To the throngs of nobles were joined throngs more chaotic still and made brutal by the recent shedding of blood, the camp servants; even the more disciplined regular squadrons began to murmur fiercely against the oppressor, and the storm began to fly with rage against the Swedish staff.

  At the first moment all lost their heads, though all understood what the matter was. “What is to be done?” cried voices near the king. “Oh, merciful Jesus!” “Rescue! defend! It is a shame not to observe the conditions!”