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

“Well, quiet your mind, my dear fellow! I know that Zagloba. He drank with me and borrowed money of me. He does not care for money⁠—either his own or another man’s. If he has his own he will spend it, and he won’t repay another’s if he borrows; but that he would undertake such a deed I do not believe.”

“He is a frivolous man,” said Pan Yan.

“Frivolous he may be, but he is a trickster who will outwit any man, and slip out of every danger himself. And as the priest with prophetic spirit said that God would give her back to you, so will it be; for it is just that every sincere affection should be rewarded. Console yourself with this hope, as I console myself.”

Here Pan Longin began to sigh deeply, and after a while added: “Let us inquire once more at the castle. Maybe they passed by here.”

They inquired everywhere, but to no purpose. There was not a trace even of the passage of the fugitives. The castle was full of nobles with their wives and children, who had shut themselves in against the Cossacks. The prince endeavored to persuade them to go with him, and warned them that the Cossacks were following in his tracks. They did not dare to attack the army, but it was likely they would attack the castle and the town after his departure. The nobles in the castle, however, were strangely blinded.

“We are safe behind the forests,” said they to the prince. “No one will come to us here.”

“But I have passed through these forests,” said he.

“You have passed, but the rabble will not. These are not the forests for them.”

The nobles refused to go, continuing in their blindness, for which they paid dearly later on. After the passage of the prince the Cossacks came quickly. The castle was defended manfully for three weeks, then was captured and all in it were cut to pieces. The Cossacks committed terrible cruelties, and no one took vengeance on them.

When the prince arrived at Lubech on the Dnieper he disposed his army there for rest, but went himself with the princess and court to Bragin, situated in the midst of forests and impassable swamps. A week later the army crossed over too. They marched then through Babitsa to Mozir, where, on the day of Corpus Christi, came the moment of separation; for the princess with the court had to go to Turoff to the wife of the voevoda of Vilna, her aunt, but the prince with the army into fire in the Ukraine.

At the farewell dinner the prince and princess, the ladies in waiting, and most of the distinguished officers were present. But the usual animation was not evident among the ladies and cavaliers, for more than one soldier heart was cut by the thought that he would soon have to leave the chosen one, for whom he wished to live, fight, and die; more than one pair of bright or dark maiden eyes were filled with tears of sorrow because “he is going to the war among bullets and swords, among Cossacks and wild Tartars⁠—is going and may not return.”

When the prince began to speak in taking farewell of his wife and court, the young ladies fell to crying one after another as plaintively as kittens; but the knights, being of sterner stuff, rose from their places, and seizing the hilts of their swords, shouted in unison⁠—

“We will conquer and return!”

“God give you strength!” answered the princess.

Then there rose a shout that made the walls and windows tremble.

“Long life to the princess! Long life to our mother and benefactress! Long life to her! long life to her!”

The officers loved her for her love to them, for her greatness of soul, her liberality and kindness, for her care of their families. Prince Yeremi loved her above all things; for theirs were two natures created as it were for each other, as much alike as two goblets of gold and bronze.

Then all went up to her, and each one knelt with his goblet before her chair, and she, embracing the head of each one, spoke some word of kindness. But to Skshetuski she said⁠—

“It is likely that more than one knight here will receive a scapula or a ribbon at parting; and since you have not here the one from whom most of all you would wish to receive a memento, take this from me as from a mother.”

While saying this, she removed a golden cross set with turquoise and hung it upon his neck. He kissed her hands with reverence.

It was evident that the prince was greatly pleased at this attention shown Skshetuski; for of late he had given him increased affection because in his mission to the Saitch he had upheld the dignity of the prince and refused to take letters from Hmelnitski. They rose from the table. The young ladies, catching on the wing the words of the princess spoken to Pan Yan and receiving them as a sign of approval and permission, began immediately to bring, one a scapula, another a scarf, a third a cross, which seeing, the knights present approached, if not his chosen, at least his favorite one. Therefore Ponyatovski came to Jitinska; Bykhovets to Bogovitinyanka, for recently he had grown pleasing to her; Roztvorovski to Jukovna; red Vershul to Skoropadska; Colonel Makhnitski, though old, to Zavyeska. Only Anusia Borzobogata Krasenska, though the most beautiful of all, stood under the window deserted and alone; her face was flushed, her eyes with drooping lids shot from their corners glances full of anger and of a prayer not to put such an affront on her. Seeing this, the traitor Volodyovski came up and said⁠—

“I too wished to beg Panna Anna for a memento, but I abandoned, resigned, my wish, thinking I should not be able to push my way to her through the dense throng.”

Anusia’s cheeks burned