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

returned, February 11, from Hmelnitski without an answer. The commissioners did not know what further to do or where to go. Their return was prevented by immense parties waiting only for the breaking of negotiations to kill the envoys. The mob became more and more insolent; the bridles of the dragoons’ horses were seized, and the road stopped; stones, pieces of ice, and frozen lumps of snow were thrown into the sleigh of the voevoda. At Gvozdova, Skshetuski and Donyéts had to fight a bloody battle in which they dispersed several hundred of the mob. The ensign of Novgrodek and Pan Smyarovski went with a new argument to persuade Hmelnitski to come to meet the commissioners at Kiev, but the voevoda had little hope that they would live to reach him. Meanwhile the commissioners in Khvastovo were forced to look with folded arms on the crowds killing prisoners of both sexes and of every age. Some were drowned through holes in the ice, some were drenched with water poured over them in the frost, others stabbed with forks or whittled to death with knives. Eighteen of such days passed before at last the answer came from Hmelnitski that he would not go to Kiev, but was waiting in Pereyasláv for the voevoda and the commissioners.

When they had crossed the Dnieper at Trypole and reached Voronkovo in the night, from which place it was only thirty miles to Pereyasláv, the unfortunate commissioners drew a breath of relief, thinking that their torment was over. Hmelnitski went out two miles and a half to meet them, wishing to show honor to the royal embassy, but how changed from those days in which he put himself forward as an injured man⁠—“quantum mutatus ab illo!” as Kisel justly wrote of him. He rode forth with a suite of horsemen, with his colonels and essauls, with martial music, under the standard, bunchuk, and crimson banner, like a sovereign prince.

The commissioners with their retinue halted at once; and Hmelnitski, riding up to the front sleigh, in which sat the voevoda, looked for a while at his venerable face, then raised his cap slightly and said⁠—

“With the forehead to you, Commissioners of the king, and to you, Voevoda. It had been better to commence treating with me long ago, when I was less and did not know my own power; but because the king has sent you to me, I receive you with thankful heart in my own land.”

“Greetings to you, Hetman!” answered Kisel. “His Majesty the King has sent us to present his favor and mete out justice.”

“I am thankful for the favor; but justice I have already meted out with this [and here he struck upon his sabre] on your necks, and I will mete out more of it if you do not give me satisfaction.”

“You do not greet us very affably, Pan Hetman of the Zaporojians⁠—us, the envoys of the king.”

“I will not speak in the cold; there will be a better time for that,” replied Hmelnitski, dryly. “Let me into your sleigh, Kisel, for I wish to show you honor and ride with you.”

Then he dismounted and approached the sleigh. Kisel pushed himself to the right, leaving the left side vacant. Seeing this, Hmelnitski frowned and exclaimed: “Give me the right side!”

“I am a senator of the Commonwealth,” replied Kisel.

“And what is a senator to me? Pan Pototski is the first senator and hetman of the Crown; I have him in fetters with others, and can impale him tomorrow, if I wish.”

A blush appeared on the pale face of Kisel. “I represent the person of the king here!” said he.

Hmelnitski frowned still more, but restrained himself and sat on the left side, muttering: “Granted; he is king in Warsaw, but I am in Russia. I see that I have not trodden enough on your necks.”

Kisel gave no answer, but raised his eyes to heaven. He had already a foretaste of that which waited him, and he thought justly at that time that if the road to Hmelnitski was a Calvary, to be envoy to him was a passion indeed.

The horses moved to the town, in which twenty cannon were thundering and all the bells tolling. Hmelnitski, as if fearing that the commissioners should consider these sounds as given out exclusively in their honor, said to the voevoda⁠—

“I receive in this manner not only you but other ambassadors who are sent to me.”

And Hmelnitski spoke the truth, for in fact embassies were sent to him as to a reigning prince. Returning from Zamost under the influence of the election and the defeats inflicted by the Lithuanian forces, the hetman had not one half of this pride in his heart; but when Kiev went forth to meet him with torches and banners, when the academy greeted him “tamquam Moijsem, servatorem, salvatorem, liberatorem, populi de servitute lechica et bono omine Bogdan⁠—God-given;” when finally he was called “illustrissimus princeps,”⁠—then, according to the words of a contemporary, “the beast was elated.” He had a real sense of his power, and felt the ground under his feet, which had been wanting to him hitherto.

Foreign embassies were a silent recognition as well of his power as of his separateness; the uninterrupted friendship of the Tartars, purchased by the greater part of the booty gained, and by the ill-fated captives whom that leader of the people permitted to be taken from the people, promised support against every enemy; therefore Hmelnitski, who recognized at Zamost the suzerainty and will of the king, was at that time so settled in pride, convinced of his own power, of the disorder of the Commonwealth, the incompetence of its leaders, that he was ready to raise his hand against the king himself, dreaming in his gloomy soul, not of Cossack freedom nor the restoration of the former privileges of the Zaporojians, not of justice