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

As God is dear to me, there are too many of them. Unless perhaps in the valley of Jehoshaphat there will not be a greater crowd. And tell me, what do those scoundrels want? Would not every dog-brother of them be better at home, working his serfage peaceably for his land? What fault is it of ours if God has made us nobles and them trash, and commanded them to obey? Tfu! I am beside myself with rage. I am a mild-mannered man, soft as a plaster; but let them not rouse me to anger! They have had too much freedom, too much bread; they have multiplied like mice in a barn; and now they are dying to get at the cats. Ah, wait! There is one cat here called Yeremi, and another called Zagloba. What do you think, will those two enter upon negotiations? If the rebels had surrendered with obedience, then their lives might be granted, might they not? One thing disturbs me continually⁠—are there provisions enough in the camp? Oh, to the devil! Look, gentlemen; fires beyond fires, and still fires! May black death fall on such a crowd!”

“Why talk about treaties,” said Skshetuski, “when they think they have us all under their hands, and will get us tomorrow?”

“But they won’t get us, will they?” asked Zagloba.

“Well, the will of God for that. In any case, since the prince is here, it won’t come easy to them.”

“You have consoled me indeed. I do not care that it should not come easy to them, but that it should not come at all.”

“It is no small pleasure for a soldier not to yield his life for nothing.”

“True, true! But may lightning strike the whole affair, and your consolation with it!”

At that moment Podbipienta and Volodyovski approached.

“They say that the Cossacks with the horde are half a million strong,” said the Lithuanian.

“I wish that you had lost your tongue,” said Zagloba; “you have brought good tidings.”

“It is easier to kill them in assault than in the field,” continued Pan Longin, mildly.

“Now that our prince and Hmelnitski have met at last, there will be no talk about negotiations. Either master or monk.18 Tomorrow will be the day of judgment,” said Volodyovski, rubbing his hands.

He was right. In that war the two most terrible lions had not yet stood eye to eye. One had crushed the hetmans and the commanders; the other powerful Cossack atamans. On the footsteps of both followed victory; each was a terror to his enemies. But whose side will be weightiest in a direct encounter? This was to be decided now. Vishnyevetski looked from the intrenchments on the countless myriads of Tartars and Cossacks, and strove in vain to embrace them with the eye. Hmelnitski looked from the field on the castle and camp, thinking in his soul: “My most terrible enemy is there; when I have finished with him, who can oppose me?”

It was easy to guess that the conflict between these two men would be long and stubborn, but the result could not be doubtful. That prince in Lubni and Vishnyovets stood at the head of fifteen thousand troops, counting the camp-servants; while the peasant chieftain was followed by mobs, from the Sea of Azoff and the Don to the mouth of the Danube. The Khan too marched with him at the head of the Crimean, Bélgorod, Nogai, and Dobrudja hordes; men marched with him who dwelt on the tributaries of the Dniester and the Dnieper, men from the lower country, and a countless rabble from the steppes, ravines, woods, towns, hamlets, villages, and farms, and all who had formerly served in private regiments or those of the Crown; Cherkes,19 Wallachians, Silistrians, Rumelians, Turks, bands of Serbs and Bulgarians were also in that host. It might appear that a new migration of nations had abandoned the dreary abodes on the steppes, and were moving westward to win fresh lands and found a new kingdom.

This was the relation of the struggling forces⁠—a handful against legions, an island against the sea. No wonder then that many a heart was beating with alarm. Not only in that town, not only in that corner of the land, but in the whole Commonwealth they looked on that lonely trench, surrounded by a deluge of wild warriors, as the tomb of great knights and their mighty chief.

Hmelnitski too looked on it in just the same way; for scarcely were the fires well kindled in his camps, when a Cossack envoy began to wave a white flag before the trenches, to sound a trumpet, and cry out not to shoot.

The guards went and brought him in at once.

“From the hetman to Prince Yeremi,” said he to them.

The prince had not yet dismounted, and was on the bulwark with face as calm as the sky. The flames were reflected in his eyes, and invested his delicate white countenance with rosy light. The Cossack standing before the face of the prince lost his speech; his legs trembled under him, and a shiver went through his body though he was an old wolf of the steppes and had come as an envoy.

“Who are you?” asked the prince, fixing his calm glance upon him.

“I am the sotnik Sokol⁠—from the hetman.”

“And why have you come?”

The sotnik began to make bows as low as the stirrups of the prince. “Pardon me, lord! I tell what has been commanded me. I am to blame in nothing.”

“Speak boldly!”

“The hetman commanded me to inform you that he has come as a guest to Zbaraj, and will visit you in the castle tomorrow.”

“Tell him that not tomorrow, but today I give a feast in the castle,” answered the prince.

In fact an hour later the mortars were thundering salutes, joyous shouts were raised; all the windows of the castle shone with a thousand gleaming lights.

The Khan, hearing the salutes of the cannon and the sound of trumpets and drums, went out in front of