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

marched through Vinnitsa and Litin to Hmelnik; on the way Vershul met a Tartar party in Saverovka, which he and Volodyovski destroyed, and freed a few hundred captives⁠—almost all young women. There began the ruined country; all around were traces of the hand of Krívonos. Strijavka was burned, and its population put to death in a terrible manner. Apparently the unfortunates had resisted Krívonos; therefore the savage chief had delivered them to sword and flame. On an oak-tree at the entrance to the village hung Pan Strijovski himself, whom Tishkyevich’s men recognized at once. He was entirely naked, and had around his neck an enormous necklace of heads strung on a rope; they were the heads of his wife and six children. Everything in the village itself was burned to the ground. They saw on both sides of the road a long row of “Cossack candles,”⁠—that is, people with hands raised above their heads, and tied to stakes driven into the ground, wound around with straw steeped in pitch and set on fire at the hands. The greater part of them had only their hands burned, for the rain had evidently stopped the further burning. But those bodies were terrible, with their distorted faces and black stumps of hands stretched to heaven. The odor of putrefaction spread round about. Above the stakes whirled circles of ravens and crows, which at the approach of the troops flew away with an uproar from the nearer stakes to sit on the farther ones. A number of wolves galloped off before the regiments to the thicket. The men marched on in silence through the alley, and counted the “candles.” There were between three and four hundred of them.

They passed at length that unfortunate village, and breathed the fresh air of the field. But traces of destruction extended farther. It was the first half of July. The grain was almost ripe, for an early harvest was looked for. But entire fields were partly burned, partly trampled, tangled, trodden into the earth. It might have been thought that a hurricane had passed over the land. In fact, the most terrible of all hurricanes had passed⁠—civil war. The soldiers of the prince had seen more than once rich neighborhoods ruined by Tartar raids; but such a storm, such mad destruction, they had never seen. Forests were burned as well as grain. Where fire had not devoured the trees the bark and leaves were swept from them by a tongue of fire; they were scorched by its breath, smoked, blackened, and the tree-trunk stuck up like a skeleton. The voevoda of Kiev looked, and could not believe his eyes. Maidyanóe, Zbar⁠—villages, houses⁠—nothing but burned ruins! On one side and another the men had run off to Krívonos; the women and children had been taken captive by that part of the horde which Vershul and Volodyovski had crushed out. On the earth a wilderness; in the air flocks of ravens, crows, jackdaws, and vultures, which had flown hither, God knows whence, to the Cossack harvest. Fresher traces of the passage of troops were seen each moment. From time to time they came upon broken wagons, bodies of cattle and men not yet decayed, broken cups, brass kettles, bags of wet flour, ruins still smoking, stacks of grain recently begun and left unfinished.

The prince urged his regiments on to Hmelnik without drawing breath. The old voevoda seized himself by the head, repeating sadly⁠—

“My Makhnovka, my Makhnovka! I see we shall not come in time.”

Meanwhile news was brought to Hmelnik that Makhnovka was besieged, not by old Krívonos himself, but by his son with several thousand men, and that it was he who had committed such inhuman devastations along the road. The place was already taken, according to accounts. The Cossacks on capturing it had cut to pieces the nobles and the Jews, and taken the women of the nobles to camp, where a fate worse than death awaited them. But the castle, under the leadership of Pan Lyeff, held out yet. The Cossacks stormed it from the Bernardine monastery, in which they had put the monks to death. Pan Lyeff, using all his strength and powder, gave no hope of holding out longer than one night.

The prince therefore left the infantry, the guns, and the main strength of the army, which he ordered to go to Bystrika, and galloped on to the relief with the voevoda, Pan Kryshtof, Pan Aksak, and two thousand soldiers. The old voevoda was for delay, for he had lost his head.

“Makhnovka is lost! We shall arrive too late! We would better leave it, defend other places, and provide them with garrisons.”

But the prince would not listen to him. The under-judge of Bratslav urged the advance, and the troops rushed to the fight.

“Since we have come thus far, we will not leave without blood,” said the colonels; and they went on.

About two miles and a half from Makhnovka a few riders, moving as fast as their horses could carry them, halted in front of the troops. It was Pan Lyeff and his companions. Seeing him, the voevoda of Kiev guessed at once what had happened.

“The castle is taken!” he cried.

“It is!” answered Pan Lyeff; and that moment he fainted, for he was cut with swords, was shot through, and had lost much blood. But the others began to tell what had taken place. The Germans on the wall were cut down to the last man, for they preferred to die rather than yield. Pan Lyeff had forced his way through the thick of the mob and the broken gates. In the rooms of the tower a few tens of nobles were defending themselves; to those speedy succor should be given.

The cavalry swept on with all speed. Soon the town and castle were visible on a hill, and above them a dense cloud of smoke from the fire which had already begun. The day was coming