The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  More than once it seemed that the wild starosta wished to cool in the blood of men his spirit, at once raging and burning with love, for he started up suddenly and went on an expedition. Victory followed him nearly everywhere. He cut to pieces parties of rebels, and ordered, as an example, that the right hands be cut from captured peasants, who were then sent home free.

  The terror of his name girded Taurogi as with a wall; even the most considerable bodies of patriots did not dare to go beyond Rossyeni. Peace was established in all parts, and he formed new regiments of German vagrants and the local peasants with the money extorted from neighboring citizens and nobles, and increased in power so as to furnish men to the prince in case of urgent necessity.

  A more loyal and terrible servant Boguslav could not have found.

  But Sakovich gazed more and more tenderly at Anusia with his terrible, pale-blue eyes, and played to her on a lute. Life, therefore, in Taurogi passed for Anusia joyously and with amusement; for Olenka it was sore and monotonous. From one there went gleams of gladness, like that light which issues at night from the firefly; the face of the other grew paler and paler, more serious, sterner; her dark brows were contracted more resolutely on her white forehead, so that finally they called her a nun. And she had something in her of the nun; she began to accept the thought that she would become one,—that God himself would through suffering and disappointment lead her to peace behind the grating. She was no longer that maiden with beautiful bloom on her face and happiness in her eyes; not that Olenka who on a time while riding in a sleigh with her betrothed, Andrei Kmita, cried, “Hei! hei!” to the pine woods and forests.

  Spring appeared in the world. A wind strong and warm shook the waters of the Baltic, now liberated from ice; later on, trees bloomed, flowers shot out from their harsh leafy enclosures; then the sun grew hot, and the poor girl was waiting in vain for the end of Taurogi captivity,—for Anusia did not wish to flee, and in the country it was ever more terrible.

  Fire and sword were raging as though the pity of God were never to be manifest. Nay more, whoso had not seized the sabre or the lance in winter, seized it in spring; snow did not betray his tracks, the pine wood gave better concealment, and warmth made war the easier.

  News flew swallow-like to Taurogi,—sometimes terrible, sometimes comforting; and to these and to those the maiden devoted her prayers, and shed tears of sorrow or joy.

  Previous mention had been made of a terrible uprising of the whole people. As many as the trees in the forests of the Commonwealth, as many as the ears of grain waving on its fields, as many as the stars shining on it at night between the Carpathians and the Baltic, were the warriors who rose up against the Swedes. These men, being nobles, were born to the sword and to war by God’s will and nature’s order; those who cut furrows with the plough, sowed land with grain; those who were occupied with trade and handicraft in towns; those who lived in the wilderness, from bee-keeping, from pitch-making, who lived with the axe or by hunting; those who lived on the rivers and labored at fishing; those who were nomads in the steppes with their cattle,—all seized their weapons to drive out the invader.

  The Swede was now drowning in that multitude as in a swollen river.

  To the wonder of the whole world, the Commonwealth, powerless but a short time before, found more sabres in its defence than the Emperor of Germany or the King of France could have.

  Then came news of Karl Gustav,—how he was marching ever deeper into the Commonwealth, his feet in blood, his head in smoke and flames, his lips blaspheming. It was hoped any moment to hear of his death and the destruction of all the Swedish armies.

  The name of Charnyetski was heard with increasing force from boundary to boundary, transfixing the enemy with terror, pouring consolation into the hearts of the Poles.

  “He routed them at Kozyenitsi!” was said one day. “He routed them at Yaroslav!” was repeated a few weeks later; a distant echo repeated: “He has beaten them at Sandomir!” The only wonder was where so many Swedes could still come from after so many defeats.

  Finally a new flock of swallows flew in, and with them the report of the imprisonment of the king and the whole Swedish army in the fork of the rivers. It seemed that the end was right there. Sakovich stopped his expeditions; he merely wrote letters at night and sent them in various directions.

  Billevich seemed bewildered. He rushed in every evening with news to Olenka. Sometimes he gnawed his hands, when he remembered that he had to sit in Taurogi. The old soldier soul was yearning for the field. At last he began to shut himself up in his room, and to ponder over something for hours at a time. Once he seized Olenka in his arms, burst out into great weeping, and said,—"You are a dear girl, my only daughter, but the country is dearer.” And next day he vanished, as if he had fallen through the earth. Olenka found merely a letter, and in it the following words:—

  “God bless thee, beloved child! I understood well that they are guarding thee and not me, and that it would be easier for me to escape alone. Let God judge me, thou poor orphan, if I did this from hardness of heart and lack of fatherly love for thee. But the torment surpassed my endurance. I swear, by Christ’s wounds, that I could endure no longer. For when I thought that the best Polish blood was flowing in a river pro patria el libertate (for the country and liberty), and in that river there was not one drop of my blood, it seemed to me that the angels of heaven were condemning me. If I had not been born in our sacred Jmud, where love of country and bravery are cherished, if I had not been born a noble, a Billevich, I should have remained with thee and guarded thee. But thou, if a man, wouldst have done as I have; therefore thou’lt forgive me for leaving thee alone, like Daniel in the lions’ den, whom God in His mercy preserved; so I think that the protection of our Most Holy Lady the Queen will be better over thee than mine.”

  Olenka covered the letter with tears: but she loved her uncle still more because of this act, for her heart rose with pride. Meanwhile no small uproar was made in Taurogi. Sakovich himself rushed to the maiden in great fury, and without removing his cap asked,—

  “Where is your uncle?”

  “Where all, except traitors, are,—in the field!”

  “Did you know of this?” cried he.

  But she, instead of being abashed, advanced some steps and measuring him with her eyes, said with inexpressible contempt,—

  “I knew—and what?”

  “Ah, if it were not for the prince! You will answer to the prince!”

  “Neither to the prince nor to his serving-lad. And now I beg you—” And she pointed to the door.

  Sakovich gnashed his teeth and went out.

  That same day news of the victory at Varka was ringing through Taurogi, and such fear fell on all partisans of the Swedes that Sakovich himself dared not punish the priests who sang publicly in the neighboring churches Te Deum.

  A great burden fell from his heart, when a few weeks later a letter came from Boguslav, who was before Marienburg, with information that the king had escaped from the river sack. But the other news was very disagreeable. The prince asked reinforcements, and directed to leave in Taurogi no more troops than were absolutely needed for defence.

  All the cavalry ready marched the next day, and with it Kettling, Oettingen, Fitz-Gregory,—in a word, all the best officers, except Braun, who was indispensable to Sakovich.

  Taurogi was still more deserted than after the prince’s departure. Anusia grew weary, and annoyed Sakovich all the more. The starosta thought of removing to Prussia; for parties, made bold by the departure of the troops, began again to push beyond Rossyeni. The Billeviches themselves had collected about five hundred horse, small nobles and peasants. They had inflicted a sensible defeat on Bützov, who had marched against them, and they ravaged without mercy all villages belonging to Radzivill.

  Men rallied to them willingly; for no family, not even the Hleboviches, enjoyed such general hono
r and respect. Sakovich was sorry to leave Taurogi at the mercy of the enemy; he knew that in Prussia it would be difficult for him to get money and reinforcements, that he managed here as he liked, there his power must decrease; still he lost hope more and more of being able to maintain himself.

  Bützov, defeated, took refuge under him; and the tidings which he brought of the power and growth of the rebellion made Sakovich decide at last on the Prussian journey.

  As a positive man, and one loving to bring into speedy effect that which he had planned, he finished his preparations in ten days, issued orders, and was ready to march.

  Suddenly he met with an unlooked for resistance, and from a side from which he had least expected it,—from Anusia Borzobogati.

  Anusia did not think of going to Prussia. She was comfortable in Taurogi. The advances of confederate “parties” did not alarm her in the least; and if the Billeviches had attacked Taurogi itself, she would have been glad. She understood also that in a strange place, among Germans, she would be at Sakovich’s mercy completely, and that she might the more easily be brought there to obligation, for which she had no desire; therefore she resolved to insist on remaining. Olenka, to whom she explained her reasons, not only confirmed the justness of them, but implored with all her power, with tears in her eyes, to oppose the journey.

  “Here,” said she, “salvation may come,—if not to-day, to-morrow; there we should both be lost utterly.”

  “But see, you almost abused me because I wanted to conquer the starosta, though I knew of nothing; as I love Princess Griselda, it only came somehow of itself. But now would he regard my resistance were he not in love? What do you think?”

  “True, Anusia, true,” responded Olenka.

  “Do not trouble yourself, my most beautiful flower! We shall not stir a foot out of Taurogi; besides, I shall annoy Sakovich terribly.”

  “God grant you success!”

  “Why should I not have it? I shall succeed, first, because he cares for me, and second, as I think he cares for my property. It is easy for him to get angry with me; he can even wound me with his sabre; but then all would be lost.”

  And it turned out that she was right. Sakovich came to her joyful and confident; but she greeted him with disdainful mien.

  “Is it possible,” asked she, “that you wish to flee to Prussia from dread of the Billeviches?”

  “Not before the Billeviches,” answered he, frowning; “not from fear; but I go there from prudence, so as to act against those robbers with fresh forces.”

  “Then a pleasant journey to you.”

  “How is that? Do you think that I will go without you, my dearest hope?”

  “Whoso is a coward may find hope in flight, not in me.”

  Sakovich was pale from anger. He would have punished her; but seeing before whom he was standing, he restrained himself, softened his fierce face with a smile, and said, as if jesting,—

  “Oh, I shall not ask. I will seat you in a carriage and take you along.”

  “Will you?” asked she. “Then I see that I am held here in captivity against the will of the prince. Know then, sir, that if you do that, I shall not speak another word to you all my life, so help me the Lord God! for I was reared in Lubni, and I have the greatest contempt for cowards. Would that I had not fallen into such hands! Would that Pan Babinich had carried me off for good into Lithuania, for he was not afraid of any man!”

  “For God’s sake!” cried Sakovich. “Tell me at least why you are unwilling to go to Prussia.”

  But Anusia feigned weeping and despair.

  “Tartars as it were have taken me into captivity, though I was reared by Princess Griselda, and no one had a right to me. They seize me, imprison me, take me beyond the sea by force, will condemn me to exile. It is soon to be seen how they will tear me with pincers! O my God! my God!”

  “Have the fear of that God on whom you are calling!” cried the starosta. “Who will tear you with pincers?”

  “Oh, save me, all ye saints!” cried Anusia, sobbing.

  Sakovich knew not what to do; he was choking with rage. At times he thought that he would go mad, or that Anusia had gone mad. At last he threw himself at her feet and said that he would stay in Taurogi. Then she began to entreat him to go away, if he was afraid; with which she brought him to final despair, so that, springing up and going out, he said,—

  “Well! we shall remain in Taurogi, and whether I fear the Billeviches will soon be seen.”

  And collecting that very day the remnant of Bützov’s defeated troops and his own, he marched, but not to Prussia, only to Rossyeni, against the Billeviches, who were encamped in the forests of Girlakol. They did not expect an attack, for news of the intended withdrawal of the troops from Taurogi had been repeated in the neighborhood for several days. The starosta struck them while off their guard, cut them to pieces, and trampled them. The sword-bearer himself, under whose leadership the party was, escaped from the defeat; but two Billeviches of another line fell, and with them a third part of the soldiers; the rest fled to the four points of the world. The starosta brought a number of tens of prisoners to Taurogi, and gave orders to slay every one, before Anusia could intercede in their defence.

  There was no further talk of leaving Taurogi; and the starosta had no need of doing so, for after this victory parties did not go beyond the Dubisha.

  Sakovich put on airs and boasted beyond measure, saying that if Löwenhaupt would send him a thousand good horse he would rub out the rebellion in all Jmud. But Löwenhaupt was not in those parts then. Anusia gave a poor reception to this boasting.

  “Oh, success against the sword-bearer was easy,” said she; “but if he before whom both you and the prince fled had been there, of a certainty you would have left me and fled to Prussia beyond the sea.”

  These words pricked the starosta to the quick.

  “First of all, do not imagine to yourself that Prussia is beyond the sea, for beyond the sea is Sweden; and second, before whom did the prince and I flee?”

  “Before Pan Babinich!” answered she, courtesying with great ceremony.

  “Would that I might meet him at a sword’s length!”

  “Then you would surely lie a sword’s depth in the ground; but do not call the wolf from the forest.”

  Sakovich, in fact, did not call that wolf with sincerity; for though he was a man of incomparable daring, he felt a certain, almost superstitious, dread of Babinich,—so ghastly were the memories that remained to him after the recent campaign. He did not know, besides, how soon he would hear that terrible name.

  But before that name rang through all Jmud, there came in time other news,—for some the most joyful of joyful, but for Sakovich most terrible,—which all mouths repeated in three words throughout the whole Commonwealth,—

  “Warsaw is taken!”

  It seemed that the earth was opening under the feet of traitors; that the whole Swedish heaven was falling on their heads, together with all the deities which had shone in it hitherto like suns. Ears would not believe that the chancellor Oxenstiern was in captivity; that in captivity were Erskine, Löwenhaupt, Wrangel; in captivity the great Wittemberg himself, who had stained the whole Commonwealth with blood, who had conquered one half of it before the coming of Karl Gustav; that the king, Yan Kazimir, was triumphing, and after the victory would pass judgment on the guilty.

  And this news flew as if on wings; roared like a bomb through the Commonwealth; went through villages, for peasant repeated it to peasant; went through the fields, for the wheat rustled it; went through the forest, for pine-tree told it to pine-tree; the eagles screamed it in the air; and all living men still the more seized their weapons.

  In a moment the defeat of Girlakol was forgotten around Taurogi. The recently terrible Sakovich grew small in everything, even in his own eyes. Parties began again to attack bodies of Swedes; the Billevich
es, recovering after their last defeat, passed the Dubisha again, at the head of their own men and the remainder of the Lauda nobles.

  Sakovich knew not himself what to begin, whither to turn, from what side to look for salvation. For a long time he had no news from Prince Boguslav, and he racked his head in vain. Where was he, with what troops could he be? And at times a mortal terror seized him: had not the prince too fallen into captivity? He called to mind the prince’s saying that he would turn his tabor toward Warsaw, and that if they would make him commandant over the garrison in the capital, he would prefer to be there, for he could look more easily on every side.

  There were not wanting also people who asserted that the prince must have fallen into the hands of Yan Kazimir.