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

for that! I told Pan Longin to inquire carefully whether our poor princess had been seen anywhere, for I think Jendzian must have taken her to the king’s headquarters. Pan Longin will be sure not to rest; he will not come back without the king. In that case we shall have news again soon.”

“I have faith in the wit of that lad Jendzian, and think that he saved her somehow. I should know no peace if harm met her. I did not know her intimately, and I believe if I had a sister she would not have been dearer to me.”

“She was a sister to you, but to me a daughter. From these troubles my beard will grow white altogether, and my heart break from sorrow. When you love someone⁠—one, two, three, and that one is gone; then you sit, console yourself, worry, grieve, meditate⁠—having besides an empty stomach, and holes in your cap through which the water is falling on your bald head like rain through a broken thatch. Dogs have at present a pleasanter life in the Commonwealth than the nobles, and we four are the worst off of all. It is time to go to a better world, Pan Michael, what do you think?”

“I have thought more than once whether it would not be better to tell Skshetuski all; but this restrains me, that he himself never speaks of her, and when anyone utters a word he just quivers as if something pierced his heart.”

“Tell him, open the wounds dried up in the fire of this war, while now some Tartar maybe is leading her by the hair through Perekop! Flaming fires stand in my eyes when I think of such a thing. It is time to die, it cannot be otherwise; for there is torture alone in this world, nothing more. If only Pan Longin gets through!”

“He must have more favor in heaven than others, for he is virtuous. But look! what are the rabble doing?”

“There is such a glitter from the sun today that I cannot see.”

“They are cutting up our rampart of yesterday.”

“I said there would be an assault. Let us go, Pan Michael; we have stood here long enough.”

“They are not digging to make an assault; they must have an open road to return, and besides they will surely bring machines to shoot from. Just see how the shovels are working; they have levelled the ground about forty yards already.”

“I see now; but there is a terrible glare today.” Zagloba covered his eyes with his hand, and looked.

At that moment through the cut made in the rampart rushed a stream of people who scattered in the twinkle of an eye along the space between the ramparts. Some fell to firing; others, digging the ground with spades, began to raise a new mound and trenches to enclose the Polish camp with a third ring.

“Oh, ho!” cried Volodyovski, “the word is scarcely out of my mouth, and they are rolling in the machines.”

“Well, there will be an assault soon. Let us leave this place,” said Zagloba.

“No; this is another kind of tower,” said the little knight.

Really, the machines which appeared in the cut were built differently from the ordinary moving-tower. The walls were composed of ladders fastened together with hasps, covered with cloth and skins, from behind which the best marksmen, sitting from half the height of the machine to the top, struck the enemy.

“Come away! Let the dogs gnaw on where they are!”

“Wait!” answered Volodyovski. They began to count the machines, as new ones appeared in the cut.

“One, two, three⁠—it is evident they have no small supply⁠—four, five, six⁠—they are coming yet⁠—seven, eight⁠—they can kill a dog on our square, for there must be splendid marksmen there⁠—nine, ten⁠—evident as on your hand, for the sun shines on it⁠—eleven⁠—” All at once Pan Michael stopped counting. “What is that?” he asked, in a voice of amazement.

“Where?”

“There on the highest one⁠—a man is hanging!”

Zagloba strained his glance. Indeed, on the highest machine the sun was shining on the naked body of a man, swaying on a rope with the movement of the machine, like a great pendulum.

“True,” said Zagloba.

Then Volodyovski grew pale as a sheet, and cried with a terrified voice: “Almighty God! it is Podbipienta!”

A murmur rose on the ramparts like wind through the leaves of trees, Zagloba bent his head, covered his eyes with his hands, and whispered with blue lips, groaning: “Jesus, Mary! Jesus, Mary!”

The murmur changed into a noise of confused words, and then into a roar as of a stormy sea. The men on the ramparts saw that by that infamous cord was hanging the comrade of their sufferings, a knight without reproach. All knew that that was Pan Longin Podbipienta, and terrible anger began to raise the hair on the heads of the soldiers.

Zagloba at last took his hands from his eyes. He was a terror to look at. On his mouth was foam, his face was blue, his eyes bursting from his head. “Blood! blood!” roared he, with such a voice that a quiver passed through those standing near him.

He sprang into the ditch. After him rushed everything that had life on the ramparts. No power⁠—not even the commands of the prince⁠—could have restrained that outburst of rage. They climbed out of the ditch, one over the shoulders of the other; they seized the bank of the ditch with their hands and with their teeth, and when one sprang out he ran without looking, not turning to see whether others were following. The machines were smoking like tar-factories, and trembled from the roar of musketry, but nothing availed. Zagloba rushed on in advance, his sabre above his head, raging like a mad bull. The Cossacks sprang forward too with scythes and flails on the assailants. Two walls, as it were, struck with a crash. But fat dogs cannot defend themselves long against hungry and raging wolves. Pushed from their place, cut with sabres, torn with teeth, beaten, crushed, the