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

he may win the glory of a savior and father of his country. Who will reach for the crown, who rescue the fatherland, disgraced, trodden under the feet of peasants, conquered, dying, if not he, the prince⁠—if not those forces which shine there below him in their armor and gleam in the sun?

The tabor passed by the foot of the mound; and at the sight of the prince standing with his baton in his hand on the eminence under the cross, all the soldiers gave forth one shout: “Long live the prince! long live our leader and hetman Yeremi Vishnyevetski!”

A hundred banners were lowered to his feet. The hussars sounded their horns, and the drums were beaten to accompany the shouts. Then the prince drew forth his sabre, and raising it with his eyes to heaven, said⁠—

“I, Yeremi Vishnyevetski, voevoda of Rus, prince in Lubni and Vishnyovets, swear to thee, O God, One in a Holy Trinity, and to thee, Most Holy Mother, that, raising this sabre against ruffianism by which our land is disgraced, I will not lay it down while strength and life remain to me, until I wash out that disgrace and bend every enemy to the feet of the Commonwealth, give peace to the Ukraine, and drown servile insurrection in blood. And as I make this oath with a sincere heart, so God give me aid. Amen!”

He stood yet awhile longer looking at the heavens, then rode down slowly from the height to the regiments. The army marched that evening to Basani, a village belonging to Pani Krynitska, who received the prince on her knees at the gate; for the peasants had laid siege to her house and she was keeping them off with the assistance of the more faithful of her servants, when the sudden arrival of the army saved her and her nineteen children, of whom fourteen were girls. When the prince had given orders to seize the aggressors, he sent a Cossack company to Kanyeff under command of Captain Ponyatovski, who brought that same night five Zaporojians of the Vasyutin kuren. These had all taken part in the battle of Korsún, and when burned with fire gave a detailed account of the battle. They stated that Hmelnitski was still in Korsún, but that Tugai Bey had gone with captives, booty, and both hetmans to Chigirin, whence he intended to return to the Crimea. They heard also that Hmelnitski had begged him earnestly not to leave the Zaporojian army, but to march against the prince. The murza, however, would not agree to this, saying that after the destruction of the armies and the hetmans, the Cossacks could go on alone; he would not wait longer, for his captives would die. They put Hmelnitski’s forces at two hundred thousand, but of rather poor quality; of good men only fifty thousand⁠—that is, Zaporojians and Cossacks subject to lords, or town Cossacks who had joined the rebellion.

On receiving these tidings the prince grew strong in spirit, for he hoped that he too would increase considerably in strength by the accession of nobles on the west of the Dnieper, stragglers from the army of the Crown, and detachments belonging to Polish lords. Therefore he set out early next morning.

Beyond Pereyasláv the army entered immense gloomy forests extending along the course of the Trubej to Kozelets, and farther on to Chernigoff itself. It was toward the end of May, and terribly hot. In the woods, instead of being cool, it was so sultry that men and horses lacked air for breathing. Cattle, driven after the army, fell at every step, or when they caught the smell of water, rushed to it as if wild, overturning wagons and causing dismay. Horses too began to fall, especially those of the heavy cavalry. The nights were unendurable from the infinite number of insects and the overpowering odor of pitch, which the trees dropped in unusual abundance by reason of the heat.

They dragged on in this way for four days; at length on the fifth day the heat became unnatural. When night came the horses began to snort and the cattle to bellow plaintively, as if foreseeing some danger which men could not yet surmise.

“They smell blood!” was said in the tabor among the crowds of fugitive families of nobles.

“The Cossacks are pursuing us! there will be a battle!”

At these words the women raised a lament, the rumor reached the servants, panic and disturbance set in; the people tried to drive ahead of one another, or to leave the track and go at random through the woods, where they got entangled among the trees.

But men sent by the prince soon restored order. Scouts were ordered out on every side, so as to be sure whether danger was threatening or not.

Skshetuski, who had gone as a volunteer with the Wallachians, returned first toward morning and went straightway to the prince.

“What is the trouble?” asked Yeremi.

“Your Highness, the woods are on fire.”

“Set on fire?”

“Yes; I seized a number of men who confessed that Hmelnitski had sent volunteers to follow you and to set fire, if the wind should be favorable.”

“He wanted to roast us alive without giving battle. Bring the people here!”

In a moment three herdsmen were brought⁠—wild, stupid, terrified⁠—who immediately confessed that they were in fact commanded to set fire to the woods. They confessed also that forces were despatched after the prince, but that they were going to Chernigoff by another road, nearer the Dnieper.

Meanwhile other scouts returned. All brought the same report: “The woods are on fire.”

But the prince did not allow himself to be disturbed in the least by this. “It is a villanous method,” said he; “but nothing will come of it. The fire will not go beyond the rivers entering the Trubej.”

In fact, into the Trubej, along which the army marched to the north, there fell so many small rivers forming here and there broad morasses, impassable for fire, that it would