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

id="noteref-12" epub:type="noteref">12 And perhaps for this very reason each one of them feared to lose the glory he possessed, by meeting the terrible Yeremi.

Hmelnitski eyed the colonels, who under the influence of that glance looked to the ground. The face of Vygovski put on a look of satanic malice.

“I know a hero,” said Hmelnitski, mournfully, “who would speak at this moment, and not avoid this work, but he is not among us.”

“Bogun!” exclaimed some voices.

“Yes. He has already swept away Yeremi’s garrison at Vassílyevka; but they wounded him in the engagement, and he lies now in Cherkasi struggling with Mother Death. And since he is not here, there is no one here as I see. Where is Cossack renown? Where are the Pavlyuks, the Nalivaikas, the Lobodas, and the Ostranitsas?”

A short, thick man, with a blue and gloomy face, and a mustache red as fire over a crooked mouth, and with green eyes, rose from the bench, pushed forward toward Hmelnitski, and said, “I will go.” This was Maksim Krívonos.

Shouts of “Glory to him!” rose in thunder; but he stood with his baton at his side, and spoke with a hoarse and halting voice⁠—

“Do not think, Hetman, that I feel fear. I should have stood up at first, but I thought, ‘There are better than I!’ But matters being as they are, I will go. Who are you? [turning to the colonels]. You are the heads and the hands; but I have no head, only hands and a sword. Once my mother bore me! War is my mother and my sister. Vishnyevetski slaughters, I will slaughter; he hangs, and I will hang. But you, Hetman, give me good warriors; for with a mob you can do nothing with Vishnyevetski. And so I go to take castles, kill, slaughter, hang! Death to the white hands!”

Another ataman stepped forward. “I will go with you, Maksim.” This was Pulyan.

“And Chernota of Gadyach, and Gladki of Mirgorod, and Nosach will go with you,” said Hmelnitski.

“We will,” said they, in one voice; for the example of Krívonos roused them, and courage entered them.

“Against Yeremi, against Yeremi!” thundered shouts through the assembly. “Cut! slay!” repeated the Brotherhood; and after a time the council became a carousal. The regiments assigned to Krívonos drank deeply, for they were going to death. They knew this well themselves, but there was no fear in their hearts. “Once our mother bore us!” repeated they after their leader; and on this account they spared nothing on themselves, as is usual before death. Hmelnitski permitted and encouraged this; the crowd followed their example. The legions began to sing songs in a hundred thousand voices. Horses let loose and prancing through the camp raised clouds of dust, and caused indescribable disorder. They were chased with cries and shouts and laughter. Great crowds loitered along the river, fired muskets, crowded and pushed to the quarters of the hetman himself, who finally ordered Yakubovich to drive them away. Then began fighting and confusion, till a drenching rain drove them all to the wagons and tents.

In the evening a storm burst forth in the sky. Thunder rolled from one end of the clouds, to the other; lightning flashed through the whole country, now with white and now with ruddy blaze. In the light of these flashes Krívonos marched out of camp at the head of sixty thousand men⁠—some from the best warriors, the rest from the mob.

XXVII

Krívonos marched then from Bélaya Tserkoff through Skvira and Pogrébische to Makhnovka. Wherever he passed, traces of human habitation vanished. Whoever did not join him perished under the knife. Grain was burned standing, with forests and gardens. At the same time the prince carried annihilation in his hand. After the razing of Pogrébische, and the baptism of blood which Pan Baranovski gave to Nyemiroff, the prince’s army destroyed a number of other considerable bands, and halted in camp at Raigorod, where during a month they scarcely got off their horses. They were weakened by toil, and death had decreased them notably. Rest was necessary, for the hands of these reapers in the harvest of blood had relaxed. The prince wavered, therefore, and thought whether it would not be better to go for a time to a more peaceable region to rest and recruit his forces, especially his horses, which were more like skeletons of beasts than living creatures, since they had not eaten grain for a month, subsisting only on trampled grass.

But after they had halted a week tidings were brought that reinforcements were coming. The prince went out to meet them, and really met Pan Yanush Tishkyevich, the voevoda of Kiev, who came with fifteen hundred good men, and with him Pan Krishtof Tishkyevich, under-judge of Bratslav; young Pan Aksak, quite a youth yet, but with a well-armed company of his own; and many nobles, such as the Senyuts, the Palubinskis, the Jitinskis, the Yelovitskis, the Kyerdéis, the Boguslavskis⁠—some with escorts, others without. The entire force formed nearly two thousand horse, besides attendants.

The prince was greatly pleased, and invited thankfully to his quarters the voevoda, who could not cease wondering at the poverty and simplicity of the place. For the prince, by so much as he lived like a king in Lubni, by that much did he permit himself no comfort in the field, wishing to give an example to the soldiers. He lived therefore in one room, which the voevoda of Kiev, squeezing through the narrow door, was hardly able to enter, by reason of his enormous thickness, till he ordered his attendant to push him from behind. In the cottage, besides the table, wooden benches, and a bed covered with horse-skin, there was nothing except a little room near the door, in which an attendant slept, always ready for service. This simplicity greatly astonished the voevoda, who lived in comfort and carried carpets with him. He entered finally, and gazed with curiosity on the