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

Tatarchuk breathed more freely.

“What do you say, gentlemen, of these letters?” inquired Hmelnitski.

The Cossacks were silent. All their councils began thus, till liquor warmed up their heads, since no one of the atamans wished to raise his voice first. Being rude and cunning people, they did this principally from a fear of being laughed at for folly, which might subject the author of it to ridicule or give him a sarcastic nickname for the rest of his life; for such was the condition in the Saitch, where amidst the greatest rudeness the sense of the ridiculous and the dread of sarcasm were wonderfully developed.

The Cossacks remained silent. Hmelnitski raised his voice again.

“The koshevoi ataman is our brother and sincere friend. I believe in the koshevoi as I do in my own soul. And if any man were to speak otherwise, I should consider him a traitor. The koshevoi is our old friend and a soldier.”

Having said this, he rose to his feet and kissed the koshevoi.

“Gentlemen,” said the koshevoi, in answer, “I bring the forces together, and let the hetman lead them. As to the envoy, since they sent him to me, he is mine; and I make you a present of him.”

“You, gentlemen of the delegation, salute the koshevoi,” said Hmelnitski, “for he is a just man, and go to inform the Brotherhood that if there is a traitor, he is not the man; he first stationed a guard, he gave the order to seize traitors escaping to the Poles. Say, gentlemen, that the koshevoi is not the traitor, that he is the best of us all.”

The deputies bowed to their girdles before Tugai Bey, who chewed his sunflower-seeds the whole time with the greatest indifference; then they bowed to Hmelnitski and the koshevoi, and went out of the room.

After a while joyful shouts outside the windows announced that the deputies had accomplished their task.

“Long life to our koshevoi! long life to our koshevoi!” shouted hoarse voices, with such power that the walls of the building seemed to tremble to their foundations.

At the same time was heard the roar of guns and muskets. The deputies returned and took their seats again in the corner of the room.

“Gentlemen,” said Hmelnitski, after quiet had come in some degree outside the windows, “you have decided wisely that the koshevoi is a just man. But if the koshevoi is not a traitor, who is the traitor? Who has friends among the Poles, with whom do they come to an understanding, to whom do they write letters, to whom do they confide the person of an envoy? Who is the traitor?”

While saying this, Hmelnitski raised his voice more and more, and directed his ominous looks toward Tatarchuk and young Barabash, as if he wished to point them out expressly.

A murmur rose in the room; a number of voices began to cry, “Barabash and Tatarchuk!” Some of the kuren atamans stood up in their places, and among the deputies was heard the cry, “To destruction!”

Tatarchuk grew pale, and young Barabash began to look with astonished eyes at those present. His slow mind struggled for a time to discover what was laid to his charge; at length he said⁠—

“The dog won’t eat meat!”

Then he burst out into idiotic laughter, and after him others. And all at once the majority of the kuren atamans began to laugh wildly, not knowing themselves why. From outside the windows came shouts, louder and louder; it was evident that liquor had begun to heat their brains. The sound of the human wave rose higher and higher.

But Anton Tatarchuk rose to his feet, and turning to Hmelnitski, began to speak:⁠—

“What have I done to you, most worthy hetman of the Zaporojie, that you insist on my death? In what am I guilty before you? The commissioner Zatsvilikhovski has written a letter to me⁠—what of that? So has the prince written to the koshevoi. Have I received a letter? No! And if I had received it, what should I do with it? I should go to the secretary and ask to have it read; for I do not know how to write or to read. And you would always know what was in the letter. The Pole I don’t know by sight. Am I a traitor, then? Oh, brother Zaporojians! Tatarchuk went with you to the Crimea; when you went to Wallachia, he went to Wallachia; when you went to Smolensk, he went to Smolensk⁠—he fought with you, brave men, lived with you, and shed his blood with you, was dying of hunger with you; so he is not a Pole, not a traitor, but a Cossack⁠—your own brother; and if the hetman insists on his death, let the hetman say why he insists. What have I done to him? In what have I shown my falsehood? And do you, brothers, be merciful, and judge justly.”

“Tatarchuk is a brave fellow! Tatarehuk is a good man!” answered several voices.

“You, Tatarchuk, are a brave fellow,” said Hmelnitski; “and I do not persecute you, for you are my friend, and not a Pole⁠—a Cossack, our brother. If a Pole were the traitor, then I should not be grieved, should not weep; but if a brave fellow is the traitor, my friend the traitor, then my heart is heavy, and I am grieved. Since you were in the Crimea and in Wallachia and at Smolensk, then the offence is the greater; because now you were ready to inform the Poles of the readiness and wishes of the Zaporojian army. The Poles wrote to you to make it easy for their man to get what he wanted; and tell me, worthy atamans, what could a Pole want? Is it not my death and the death