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

rest would go on more easily. But how was he to push it out? He turned on his side, he could do nothing; then he fell into deep thought.

Next he began to rock himself on his back with increasing rapidity, each moment pushing himself half the length of his body ahead. He got heated; his forehead was in greater perspiration than during the dance. At times he stopped and rested; at times he interrupted the work, for it appeared some one of the Cossacks was coming to the door; then he began with renewed ardor. At last he pushed himself forward to the wall.

After that he began to sway in another direction, not from head to foot, but from side to side, so that every time he struck lightly against the wall with the sabre, which was pushed in this way from under his knees, moving more and more toward the middle of the stable from the side of the hilt. Zagloba’s heart began to beat like a hammer, for he saw that this method might be effectual.

He worked on, trying to strike with the least noise, and only when the conversation of the Cossacks was louder than the light blow. At last the moment came when the end of the sheath was on a line with his wrist and his knee, and further striking against the wall could not push it out. But hanging from the other side was a considerable and much heavier part of the sabre, taking into consideration the hilt with the cross usually on sabres. Zagloba counted on that cross.

He began to rock himself for the third time, but now the great object of his efforts was to turn himself with his feet toward the wall. Attaining this, he began to push himself up with his feet. The sabre still clung under his knees and his hands, but the hilt became more and more involved in the uneven surface of the ground. At length the cross caught rather firmly. Zagloba pushed the last time. For a moment joy nailed him to the spot; the sabre had dropped out.

He removed his hands then from his knees, and though they were still bound he caught the sabre with them. He held the scabbard with his feet and drew out the blade. To cut the bonds on his feet was the work of a moment. It was more difficult in the case of his hands. He was obliged to put his sabre on the ground with the edge up, and draw the cords along the edge until he had cut them. When he had done this he was not only free from bonds, but armed. He drew a long breath, then made a sign of the cross and began to thank God.

But it was very far yet from the cutting of the bonds to the rescuing of himself from the hands of Bogun.

“What further?” asked Zagloba of himself.

He found no answer. The stable was surrounded by Cossacks; there were about a hundred. A mouse could not have passed through unobserved, and what could a man as bulky as Zagloba do?

“I see that I am beginning to come to the end of my resources,” said he to himself. “My wit is only good to grease boots with, and you could buy better grease than it from the Hungarians at the fair. If God does not send me some idea, then I shall become roast meat for the crows; but if he does send me an idea, then I promise to remain in continence like Pan Longin.”

The louder conversation of the Cossacks behind the wall interrupted his thoughts. He sprang up and put his ear to a crack between the timbers. The dry pine gave back the voices like the sounding-board of a lute.

“And where shall we go from here, Father Ovsivuyu?” asked one voice.

“To Kamenyets, of course,” said another.

“Nonsense! The horses can barely drag their legs; they will not get there.”

“That’s why we stop here; they will have rest by morning.”

A moment of silence followed; then the first voice was heard lower than before. “And it seems to me, father, that the ataman is going from Kamenyets to Yampol.”

Zagloba held his breath.

“Be silent if your young head is dear to you!” was the answer.

Another moment of silence, but from behind the other walls came whispering.

“They are all around, on the watch everywhere,” muttered Zagloba; and he went to the opposite wall. Meanwhile were heard the noise of chewing oats and the snorting of horses evidently standing right there; among these horses the Cossacks were lying on the ground and talking, for their voices came from below.

“Ah!” said one, “we have come here without sleeping, eating, or feeding our horses, so as to go on the stake in the camp of Yeremi.”

“The people who have fled from Yarmolintsi saw him as I see you. What they tell is a terror. He is as big as a pine-tree; in his forehead are two firebrands, and he has a dragon under him for a horse.”

“Lord, have mercy on us!”

“We ought to take that Pole with the soldiers and be off.”

“How be off, when as it is the horses are just dying?”

“A bad fix, brother! If I were the ataman, I would cut off the heads of those Poles, and go back to Kamenyets, even on foot.”

“We will take him with us to Kamenyets, and there our ataman will play with him.”

“The devils will play with you first!” muttered Zagloba.

And, indeed, in spite of all his fear of Bogun, and maybe especially because of that, he had sworn that he would not yield himself alive. He was free from bonds, and he had a sabre in his hands⁠—he would defend himself. If they cut him to pieces, all right; but they wouldn’t take him alive.

The snorting and groaning of horses excessively road-weary drowned the sound of further conversation, and immediately gave a certain idea to Zagloba.

“If I could get through the wall,” thought