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

flames were blazing there at the banks. Before one stood a Tartar on horseback; before the other a Cossack with a long lance in his hand. Both looked at each other and at the water. In the distance were to be seen others standing on guard in the same way and looking. The gleam of the piles threw as it were a fiery bridge across the river. Under the banks were to be seen rows of small boats used by the guards on the pond.

“An impossibility!” muttered Skshetuski.

Despair seized him at once. He could neither go backward nor forward. The time had been passing as he was pushing through the swamps and reeds breathing the infected air and soaked in water, only to discover after he had come to those very camps through which he had undertaken to pass, that it was impossible.

But it was impossible to go back; the knight knew that he might find sufficient strength to drag himself ahead, but he could not find it to go back. In his despair there was at the same time a dull rage; for the first time he wished to emerge from the water, throttle the guard, then rush on the crowd and perish.

Again the wind began to move along the reeds with a wonderful whisper, bringing with it the sound of bells from Zbaraj. Skshetuski began to pray ardently and beat his breast, imploring aid from heaven with the strength and the desperate faith of a drowning man; he prayed, but the two camps roared ominously as if in answer to his prayer. Black figures and figures red from fire pushed around like herds of devils in hell. The guards stood motionless; the river flowed on with its blood-colored water.

“The fires will go down when deep night comes,” said Pan Yan to himself, and waited.

One hour passed, and another. The noise decreased; the fires really began to smoulder, except the two fires of the guards, which blazed up more brightly. The guards were changed, and it was evident that the fresh ones would remain till morning. The thought came to Skshetuski that perhaps he might be able to slip through more easily in the daytime; but he soon abandoned that idea. In the daytime they took water, watered the cattle, bathed; the river must be full of people. Suddenly his glance fell upon the boats. On both banks of the river there was a number of them in a line, and on the Tartar side the rushes extended to the first boat.

Skshetuski sank in the water to his neck, and pushed slowly toward the boats, keeping his eyes fastened on the Tartar guard as on a rainbow. At the end of half an hour he was at the first boat. His plan was simple. The sterns of the boats were raised over the water, forming above it a kind of arch through which the head of a man might pass easily. If all the boats stood side by side there, the Tartar guard could not see a head pushing under them. There was more danger from the Cossack; but he might not see it, for under the boats, notwithstanding the opposite fire, it was dark. Anyhow there was no other passage.

Skshetuski hesitated no longer, and soon found himself under the sterns of the boats. He crawled on his hands and feet, or rather dragged himself, for the water was shallow. He was so near the Tartar standing on the bank that he heard the breathing of his horse. He stopped a moment and listened. Fortunately the boats were placed side by side. He had his eyes then fastened on the Cossack guard, whom he saw as on the palm of his hand. The Cossack was looking at the Tartar camp. Skshetuski had passed fifteen boats, when suddenly he heard steps on shore and Tartar voices. He stopped immediately and listened. In his journeys to the Crimea he had learned Tartar. Now a shiver ran through his whole body when he heard the words of command: “Get in and go!”

He grew feverish, though he was in the water. If they should take the boat under which he was hiding, that moment he was lost; if they should take the one before him he was lost too, for there remained an open lighted space. Each second seemed to him an hour. Soon steps sounded on the planks. The Tartars sat in the fourth or fifth boat behind him, pushed it out and began to sail in the direction of the pond. But that movement directed the eyes of the Cossack guard to the boats. Skshetuski did not stir for something like half an hour. Only when the guards were changed did he resume his onward movement.

In this way he reached the end of the boats. After the last boat began the rushes again, and farther on the reeds. When he reached the rushes the knight, breathless, dripping with perspiration, fell upon his knees and thanked God with his whole heart.

He hastened on somewhat more boldly, taking advantage of every breeze which filled the banks with rustling. From time to time he looked around. The guard-fires began to retreat, to be hidden, to glimmer, to weaken. The lines of rushes and reeds became darker and thicker, for the shores were more swampy. The guards could not stand close to one another; the noise of the camp grew less. A kind of superhuman power strengthened the limbs of the knight. He pushed through reeds, clumps of earth, sank in the swamp, went under water, swam, and rose again. He did not dare yet to go on shore; but he almost felt that he was saved. He could not render account to himself of how long he advanced, wading in this way; but when he looked around again the watch-fires seemed like little points gleaming in the distance. A few hundred yards farther, and they vanished altogether. The moon went down; around about was