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

struggle of the combatants, each one of whom was considered the strongest among his own. You would have said that both had become one body, for they remained a long time motionless. But their faces grew red; and only from the veins which swelled on their foreheads, and from their backs bent like bows, could you suspect under that terrible quiet the superhuman tension of the arms which crushed them.

At length both began to quiver; but by degrees the face of Pan Longin grew redder and redder and the face of the Cossack bluer and bluer. Still a moment passed. The disquiet of the spectators increased.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a hollow, smothered voice: “Let me go⁠—”

“No, my darling!” Something gave a sudden and terrible rattle, a groan was heard as if from under the ground, a wave of black blood burst from Pulyan’s mouth, and his head dropped on his shoulder.

Pan Longin lifted the Cossack from his seat, and before the spectators had time to think what had happened, threw him on his own saddle and started on a trot toward Skshetuski’s regiment.

“Vivat!” cried the Vishnyevetski men.

“Destruction!” answered the Zaporojians.

Instead of being confused by the defeat of their leader, they attacked the enemy the more stubbornly. A crowded struggle followed, which the narrowness of the place made the more venomous; and the Cossacks in spite of their bravery would certainly have yielded to the greater skill of their opponents, had it not been that suddenly the trumpets from the camp of Krívonos sounded a retreat.

They withdrew at once; and their opponents, after they had stopped awhile to show that they had kept the field, withdrew also. The dam was deserted; there remained on it only bodies of men and horses, as if in testimony of that which would be⁠—and that road of death lay black between the two armies⁠—but a light breath of wind wrinkled the smooth surface of the water and sounded plaintively through the leaves of the willows standing here and there above the banks of the pond.

Meanwhile the regiments of Krívonos moved like countless flocks of starlings and plover. The mob went in advance, then the regular Zaporojian infantry, companies of cavalry, Tartar volunteers, and Cossack artillery, and all without much order. They hurried before the others, wishing to force the dam by countless numbers, and then inundate and cover the army of the prince. The savage Krívonos believed in the fist and the sabre, not in military art. Therefore he urged his whole power to the attack, and ordered the regiments marching from behind to push on those in front, so that they must go even if against their will. Cannonballs began to plunge into the water like wild swans and divers, causing no damage however to the prince’s troops, by reason of the distance. The torrent of people covered the dam and advanced without hindrance. A part of that wave on reaching the river sought a passage, and not finding it turned back to the embankment, and marched in such a dense throng that, as Osinski said afterward, one might have ridden on horseback over their heads, and so covered the embankment that not a span of free earth remained.

Yeremi looked on this from the high shore, his brows wrinkled, and from his eyes flashed malicious lightning toward those crowds. Seeing the disorder and rush of the regiments of Krívonos, he said to Makhnitski⁠—

“The enemy begin with us in peasant fashion, and disregarding military art, come on like beaters at a hunt, but they will not reach this place.”

Meanwhile, as if challenging his words, the Cossacks had come to the middle of the embankment. There they paused, astonished and disquieted by the silence of the prince’s forces. But just at that moment there was a movement among these forces, and they retreated, leaving between themselves and the embankment a broad half-circle, which was to be the field of battle.

Then the infantry of Koritski opened, disclosing the throats of Vurtsel’s cannon, turned toward the embankment, and in the corner formed by the slough and the embankment shone among the thickets along the bank the muskets of Osinski’s Germans.

It was clear in a moment to military men on whose side the victory must be. Only a mad leader like Krívonos could rush to battle on conditions according to which he could not even pass the river in case Vishnyevetski wished to prevent him.

But the prince permitted part of his enemy’s army to cross the embankment so as to surround and destroy it. The great leader took advantage of the blunders of his opponents, who did not even consider that it was impossible to reinforce his men on the other bank, except through a narrow passage over which no considerable number of men could be sent at one time; practised soldiers therefore looked with wonder at the action of Krívonos, who was not forced by anything to such a mad undertaking.

He was forced by ambition alone and a thirst for blood. He had learned that Hmelnitski, in spite of the preponderance of power under Krívonos, fearing the result of a battle with Yeremi, was marching with all his forces to his aid. Orders came not to deliver battle; but for that very reason Krívonos determined to deliver it.

Having taken Polónnoe, he got the taste of blood, and did not like to divide it with anyone; therefore he hastened. He would lose half of his men⁠—well, what of that! With the rest he would overwhelm the slender forces of the prince and cut them to pieces. He would bring the head of Vishnyevetski as a present to Hmelnitski.

The billows of the mob had reached the end of the embankment, passed it, and spread over the half-circle abandoned by Yeremi’s army. But at this moment the concealed infantry of Osinski opened upon them in the flank, and from the cannon of Vurtsel there bloomed out long wreaths of smoke, the earth trembled from the roar, and the battle