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

the heads of some of them bound in rags showed that they had hurried straightway from battle.

“People who believe in God, save yourselves! The Poles are beating ours!” they cried in loud voices.

Tumult and disorder followed. The multitude moved like a wave tossed by the wind. Suddenly wild dismay possessed all. They rushed to escape; but the streets were blocked with wagons, one part of the square was on fire, there was no place for flight. The crowd began to press and cry, to beat, choke one another, and howl for mercy, though the enemy was far away.

The lieutenant, when he heard what was taking place, grew almost wild from joy. He began to run through the room like a madman, to beat his breast with his hands with all his power, and to cry⁠—

“I knew that it would be so! As I am alive, I knew it! This is the meeting with the hetmans, with the whole Commonwealth! The hour of punishment has come! What is this?”

Again resounded the tramp; and this time several hundred Tartar horsemen appeared on the square. They rushed on at random. The crowd stopped the way before them. They rushed at the crowd, struck, beat, and dispersed it; they lashed their horses, urging them on to the road leading to Cherkasi.

“They run like a whirlwind,” said Zakhar.

Scarcely had Skshetuski moved when a second division flew by, and after that a third. The flight seemed to be general. The guards before the houses began to grow uneasy, and also to show a wish to escape. Zakhar hurried through the porch.

“Halt!” cried he to the Mirgorod men.

Smoke, heat, disorder, the tramping of horses, sounds of alarm, the howling of the crowd in the light of the conflagration, were blended in one fearful picture on which the lieutenant gazed through the window.

“What a defeat there must be! what a defeat!” cried he to Zakhar, not considering that the latter could not share his delight.

Now a new division of fugitives rushed by like lightning. The thunder of cannon shook the houses of Korsún to their foundations. Suddenly a shrieking voice began to cry right there at the house⁠—

“Save yourselves! Hmelnitski is killed! Hmelnitski is killed! Tugai Bey is killed!”

On the square there was a real end of the world. People in terror rushed into the flames. The lieutenant fell upon his knees, raised his hands to heaven⁠—

“Oh, almighty, great, and just God, praise to thee in the highest!”

Zakhar interrupted his prayer, running into the room from the antechamber.

“Come now,” said he, panting, “come and promise pardon to the Mirgorod men, for they wish to go away; and if they go, the crowd will fall upon us.”

Skshetuski went out to the porch. The Mirgorod men were moving around unquietly before the house, exhibiting a firm determination to leave the place and flee by the road leading to Cherkasi. Fear had taken possession of everyone in the town. Each moment new crowds came, fleeing, as if on wings, from the direction of Krutaya Balka⁠—peasants, Tartars, town Cossacks, Zaporojians, in the greatest disorder. And still Hmelnitski’s principal forces must be fighting yet. The battle could not be entirely decided, for the cannon were thundering with redoubled force. Skshetuski turned to the Mirgorod men.

“Because you have guarded my person well,” said he, loftily, “you need no flight to save yourselves, for I promise you intercession and favor with the hetman.”

The Mirgorod men uncovered their heads. Pan Yan put his hands on his hips, and looked proudly on the square, which grew emptier each moment. What a change of fate! Here is the lieutenant, a short time since a captive, dragged after the Cossack camp; now he has become among insolent Cossacks as a lord among subjects, as a noble among peasants, as an armored hussar among camp-followers. He, a captive, has now promised favor, and heads are uncovered in his presence, while submissive voices cry with that prolonged tone indicating fear and obedience⁠—

“Show favor to us, lord!”

“It will be as I have said,” returned the lieutenant.

He was indeed sure of the efficacy of his intercession with the hetman, with whom he was acquainted, for he had often borne letters to him from Prince Yeremi, and knew how to secure his favor. He stood, therefore, with his hands on his hips; and joy was on his face, lighted up with the blaze of the conflagration.

“Behold! the war is at an end, the wave is broken at the threshold!” thought he. “Pan Charnetski was right: the forces of the Commonwealth are unexhausted, its power unbroken.”

When he thought of this, pride swelled his breast⁠—not ignoble pride, coming from a hoped-for satisfaction of vengeance, from the conquest of an enemy; not the gaining of freedom, which now he expected every moment; nor because caps were removed before him; but he felt proud because he was a son of that victorious and mighty Commonwealth, against whose gates every malice, every attack, every blow, is broken and crushed like the powers of hell against the gates of heaven. He felt proud, as a patriotic nobleman, that he had received strength in his despondency, and was not deceived in his faith. He desired no revenge.

“She has conquered like a queen, she will forgive like a mother,” thought he.

Meanwhile the roar of cannon was changed to prolonged thunder. Horses’ hoofs clattered again over the empty streets. A Cossack, bareheaded and in his shirtsleeves, dashed into the square on a barebacked horse, with the speed of a thunderbolt; his face, cut open with a sword, was streaming with blood. He reined in the horse, stretched forth his hands, and when he had taken breath, with open mouth began to cry⁠—

“Hmelnitski is beating the Poles! The serene great mighty lords, the hetmans and colonels, are conquered⁠—the knights and the cavalry!”

When he had said this, he reeled and fell to the ground. The men of Mirgorod sprang to assist him.

Flame and pallor passed over the face of Skshetuski.

“What does he say?” asked he