With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕

cries from the Próhorovka side. Then the scow grated upon the gravel of the shore. The peasants began to spring out; but some of them were not able to land before others were breaking the railing and cutting the bottom with their axes. The planks and broken pieces began to fly through the air. The ill-fated boat was destroyed with frenzy, torn to pieces; terror lent strength to the raging people.

And all this time Zagloba was screaming: “Cut! slash! break! tear! burn! Save yourselves! Yeremi is coming! Yeremi is coming!”

Shouting in this fashion, he looked with his sound eye at Helena and began to mutter significantly.

Meanwhile from the other shore the shouts increased in view of the destruction of the boat, but it was so far away they could not understand what was said. The waving of hands seemed like threatening, and only increased the speed of destruction.

The scow disappeared after a while, but suddenly from every breast there came a cry of horror.

“They are springing into the water! they are swimming to us!” roared the peasants.

In fact, one horseman in advance and after him a number of others urged their horses into the water to swim to the other shore. It was a deed of almost insane daring; for increased by the spring flood, the river rushed on more powerfully than usual, forming here and there many eddies and whirlpools. Borne away by the impetus of the river, the horses could not swim straight across; the current began to bear them on with extraordinary swiftness.

“They will not swim across!” cried the peasants.

“They are drowning!”

“Glory be to God! Oh! oh! one horse has gone down already! Death to them!”

The horses had swum a third part of the river, but the water bore them down with increasing speed. Evidently they began to lose strength; gradually too they sank deeper and deeper. After a little the men on their backs were in the water to their girdles. The peasants from Shelepukhi ran to the water to see what was going on; now only the horses’ heads looked out above the water, which reached the breasts of the men. But now they had swum half the river. Suddenly one horse’s head and one man disappeared under the water; after that a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth⁠—the number of swimmers decreased each moment. On both sides of the river a deep silence reigned in the crowds, but all ran with the course of the water to see what would happen. Now two thirds of the river was crossed; the number of swimmers still decreased, but the heavy snorting of horses and the voices of the heroes urging them on was heard; it was clear that some would cross.

“Hi, children! to your muskets! Destruction to the prince’s men!”

Puffs of smoke burst forth; then the rattle of muskets. A cry of despair was heard from the river, and after a while horses and men had vanished. The river was cleared; only here and there in the distance, in the whirl of the waves, looked black for an instant the belly of a horse, gleamed red for a moment the cap of a Cossack.

Zagloba looked at Helena, and muttered.

XXII

Prince Vishnyevetski knew of the defeat at Korsún before Skshetuski had been found sitting on the ruins of Rozlogi, since Polyanovski, one of his hussar officers, had brought news of it to Segotin. Previous to that the prince had been in Priluka, and from there had sent Boguslav Mashkevich with a letter to the hetmans, inquiring when they would order him to march with all his forces. But as Pan Mashkevich did not return for a long time with the answer of the hetmans, the prince moved on toward Pereyasláv, sending orders on every side to the detachments that the regiments which were scattered here and there in the Trans-Dnieper should assemble as quickly as possible at Lubni.

But news came that some Cossack regiments disposed in outposts along the borders next the Tartars had dispersed or joined the insurrection. Thus the prince saw his forces suddenly decreased, and was grieved not a little; for he did not expect that those men whom he had led so often to victory could ever desert him. However, upon meeting with Pan Polyanovski and receiving news of the unexampled catastrophe, he concealed it from the army and went on toward the Dnieper, thinking to march at random into the midst of the storm and uprising, and either revenge the defeat, wipe away the disgrace of the armies, or shed his own blood. He judged that there must be some, and perhaps large, portions of the army of the Crown left after the defeat. These, if joined to his division of six thousand, might measure themselves with Hmelnitski with hope of victory.

Halting at Pereyasláv, he ordered Pan Volodyovski and Pan Kushel to send their dragoons in every direction⁠—to Cherkasi, Mantovo, Sekirnaya, Buchach, Staiki, Trakhtimiroff, and Rjischeff⁠—to collect all the boats and craft which they could find anywhere. Then the army was to cross from the left side to Rjischeff.

The messengers heard of the defeat from fugitives whom they met here and there; but at all the above-mentioned places they could not find a single boat, since, as already stated, the Grand Hetman of the Crown had taken one half of them long before for Krechovski and Barabash, and the rebellious mob on the right bank had destroyed the rest through fear of the prince. But Volodyovski crossed over with ten men to the right bank on a raft which he had fashioned in haste from tree-trunks, and seized a number of Cossacks, whom he brought to the prince, who learned from them of the enormous extent of the rebellion and the terrible fruits of the defeat at Korsún. The whole Ukraine had risen to the last man. The insurrection had spread like a deluge, which covering a level land occupies more and more space at each