On the Field of Glory Part 55

"That, word for word, is what the Duke of Lorraine writes. So, gentlemen, keep the bridles in hand, for any hour I may order the sounding of trumpets."

"When, gracious lord?" called a number of voices.

The king grew impressive in a moment.

"I will send off to-morrow those regiments which are still with me,"

then he glanced quickly at Tachevski, as if testing him. "Since her grace the queen will go to the Heights with us to see the review there, thou, unless thou ask of us an entirely new office, may remain here, if thou engage to overtake us exactly."

Yatsek, putting his arm around his wife, pushed one step toward the king with her.

"Gracious lord," said he, "if the German empire, or even the kingdom of France were offered me in exchange for this lady, G.o.d, who sees my whole heart, knows that I would not accept either, and that I would not give her for any treasure in existence. But G.o.d forbid that I should abandon my service, or lose an opportunity, or neglect a war for religion, or desert my own leader for the sake of private happiness. If I did I should despise myself, and she, for I know her, would also despise me. O gracious lord, if ill luck or misfortune were to bar the road and I could not join thee I should burn up from shame and from anguish." Here tears dimmed his eyes, blushes came to his cheeks, and, in a voice trembling from emotion, he added: "To-day I blasphemed before the altar, for I said: 'O G.o.d, I will thank to the full, to the full for this.'--But only with my life, with my blood, with my labor could I return thanks for the happiness which has met me. For this very reason I shall ask no new office, and when thou shalt move, gracious leader and king, I will not delay even one day behind thee. I will go at the same hour, though I were to fall on the morrow." And he knelt at the feet of Sobieski, who, bending forward, embraced his head and then answered,--

"Give me more of such men, and the Polish name will go through the world thundering."

Father Voynovski had tears in his eyes, the Bukoyemskis were weeping like beavers. Emotion and enthusiasm seized every man present.

"On the pagans, for the faith!" roared many voices. And then began rattling of sabres. But when it had grown somewhat quiet Pani Tachevski bent to the ear of her husband and, with pale lips, whispered into it,--

"O Yatsek, wonder not at my tears, for if thou go I may never see thee hereafter--but go!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

Still they remained two days together. The court, it is true, set out the day following, but the queen, with all her court ladies, and a mult.i.tude of lay and church dignitaries, followed the king to Tarnovski Heights where the camp was and where a great review had been ordered.

The retinue being numerous moved slowly and hence to overtake it was easy. The subsequent advance of the forces, with the king at the head of them, from the boundary to Vienna astonished the world by its swiftness, especially since the king hastened on and arrived before the main army, but to Tarnovski Heights the queen dragged on six days, with her retinue. In two days the Tachevskis came up with the escort. Pani Tachevski took her seat then in a court carriage, and Yatsek hurried on to the camp for the night, to join there his regiment. For the royal pair the time of separation was approaching. On August 22 the king took solemn farewell of his beloved "Marysienka." In the early morning he mounted and marshalled before her the army; next he moved at the head of it to Glivitsi.

People noted that although he always took farewell of the queen with great sorrow, since he loved her as the apple of his eye, and was pained by even a short absence, his face this time was radiant. So the church and lay dignitaries took courage. They knew how tremendous was a war with that enemy, who besides had never advanced with such forces.

"The Turks have moved three parts of the world, it is true," said they to themselves, "but if our lord, their greatest crusher and destroyer, goes with such delight to this struggle, we have no cause for anxiety touching it." And hope filled their bosoms, the sight of the warriors increased it still more, and changed it to perfect confidence in victory. The army, with all the camp followers seemed very considerable. As far as the eye reached the sun shone on helmets, on armor, on sabres, on barrels of muskets and cannon. The glitter was so bright that eyes were dazzled by the excess of it. Rainbow-hued ensigns and banners played in the blue air, above the army. The rolling of drums throughout the foot regiments was mingled with responses from trumpets, crooked horns, and kettledrums, and also the h.e.l.lish noise of a Janissary orchestra, and the neighing of horses.

At first the train moved toward one side, to afford a free way to all movements of the army, and only then the review began really. The royal carriage halted on a plain not too high, a little to the right of the road by which the regiments were to pa.s.s while advancing. In the first carriage sat the queen wearing plumes, laces, and velvets glittering with jewels. She was beautiful and imposing, with the full majesty in her face of a woman who possesses all in life that the most daring designs can imagine, for she had a crown, and the unspeakable love of the most glorious of contemporary monarchs. She, in common with those dignitaries in the suite of the king, felt most certain that when her husband was on horseback for action, he would be followed, as he had been followed at all times, by destruction and triumph. And she felt that at the moment the eyes of all the world from Tsargrad to Rome, Madrid, and Paris, were turned on him that all Christianity was stretching out hands to him, and that only in those iron arms of his warriors did people see rescue. Hence her heart rose with the pride of a woman. "Our might is increasing, and glory will raise us above all other kings," said she in spirit; and therefore, though her husband was leading barely twenty and some thousands of men against countless hosts of Osmanli, her breast was filled with delight and no cloud of alarm or distrust darkened then her white forehead. "Look at the victor, look at your father, the king," said she to her children, who, as little birds fill a nest, filled the carriage--"when he returns, the world will kneel to him in thanksgiving."

In other carriages were visible the charming features of youthful court ladies, the mitres of bishops, and the dignified, stern faces of senators, who remained at home to manage the government in place of His Majesty. The king himself was with the army, but all could see him very clearly on the height at some distance, among hetmans and generals, where he produced the impression of a giant on horseback. The army was to pa.s.s a little lower, before his feet, as it seemed to spectators.

First there moved forward, with a deep, rolling sound and the biting of chain-links, Pan Kantski's artillery; after it went foot regiments with a musket on the shoulder of each man, under officers with sabres on straps, and carrying long canes with which they kept all ranks in order. Those regiments marched four abreast and seemed moving fortresses, their step preserved time and was thundering. Each regiment when pa.s.sing the carriage of Her Majesty gave a loud shout to salute her, and lowered its ensign in homage. Among them were some with a costlier outfit than others, and showing a form beyond common in dignity, but the most showy regiment of all was made up of Kashubians in blue coats and yellow belts for ammunition. These Kashubians, large and strong fellows, were so carefully chosen that each seemed a brother to the next man; the heavy muskets moved in the mighty hands of those warriors as would walking-sticks. At the sound of the fife they halted before the king as one person, and presented arms with such accuracy that he smiled with delight, and the dignitaries said to one another: "Eh! To strike upon these men will not be healthy for even the Sultan's own body-guard. Those are real lions, not people!"

But immediately after them moved squadrons of light-horse. One might have thought them real centaurs to such a degree had each man and horse become one single ent.i.ty. These were undegenerate sons of those hors.e.m.e.n who in their day had trampled all Germany, cleaving apart with their sabres and with horse hoofs whole regiments, nay, entire armies of Luther's adherents. The heaviest foreign cavalry, if only equal in number could not oppose them, and the lightest could not escape from them by fleeing. The king himself had said of those men when at Hotsim: "If they are led to the enemy they will cut down all in front of them, as a mower cuts gra.s.s at his labor." And though at this moment they advanced past the carriages slowly, each person, even one quite unknowing in warfare, divined very quickly that at the right moment nothing save a hurricane could surpa.s.s them in swiftness, power to whirl, strike down, and overthrow. Crooked trumpets and drums went on thundering in front of them, while they marched forward, squadron after squadron, with drawn sabres which seemed flaming swords in the quivering sunlight. When they had pa.s.sed the court carriages they advanced like a wave starting suddenly, going first at a trot which turned soon to a gallop, and, when they had outlined a great giant circle, they pa.s.sed again, and this time they rushed like a tempest and near the queen's carriage; but while they were doing this they shouted, "Slay! Kill!" and in extended right hands held their sabres pointed forward as if in attacking, on horses whose nostrils were distended to the utmost, with waving manes, as if wild from the impetus of their onrush. And they pa.s.sed thus a second time, and then at the third turn they, without breaking ranks, stood still on a sudden. They did this so accurately, so evenly, and with such agreement that foreigners, of whom at that court there were many, and especially those who saw then for the first time Polish cavalry in action, gazed at one another with amazement, as if each man were questioning his own eyesight.

When they had vanished the field glittered with dragoons everywhere and bloomed like a blossom. Some of those regiments had appeared under Pan Yablonovski, some had been a.s.sembled by magnates, and one by the king, from his own private fortune; this was commanded by Pan de Maligny, Her Majesty's brother.

In the dragoons served common folk for the greater part, but men trained to riding from childhood, experienced in fighting of various sorts, stubborn under fire, less terrible at close quarters than n.o.bles, but disciplined and most enduring of military labor.

But the greatest delight for the eyes and the spirit began only when the hussars started forward. They moved on in calmness as was proper for regiments of such value; their lances pointing upward seemed a forest, and at the points, moved by the light breeze, was a rainbow cloud of streamers. Their horses were heavier than those in other squadrons; their steel armor was inlaid with gold; on their shoulders were wings, in which the feathers, even when moving slowly, made that sound heard in forests among branches. The great dignity, and, as it were, the pride which issued forth from them, made so deep an impression that the queen and court ladies, the senators, and above all, foreign visitors, rose in their carriages to see them more accurately. There was something tremendous in that march, for it came to the mind of each man unwittingly, that when an avalanche of iron like that should rush forward it would crush, grind, and drive apart all things in front of it, and that there was no human strength which could stop it. And this was undoubted. Not so distant at that time was the day when three thousand such hors.e.m.e.n had rubbed into dust Swedish legions five times their own number; still less remote was that other day when one squadron of the same kind had pa.s.sed, like a spirit of destruction, through the whole army of Karl Gustav; and quite recent was the day when at Hotsim those same hussars under that same king there present had trampled in the earth Turkish guards formed of Janissaries, as easily as standing wheat in the open. Many of the men who had shared in that shattering of the enemy at Hotsim were serving then under the banners of that day, and these warriors, proud, calm, and confident, were starting now toward the walls of a foreign capital to reap a new harvest.

Terror and strength seemed the soul of that body. An afternoon breeze rose behind them on a sudden, whistled in their streamers, blew forward the waving manes of their horses, and made so mighty a sound in the wings at the shoulders of each mounted warrior, that the horses from Spain which drew the court carriages rose on their haunches. The squadrons approached to a line twenty yards from the carriages, turned to one side and marched past in squadrons. Then it was that Pani Tachevski saw her husband for the last time before the expedition. He rode in the second rank at the edge of the squadron, all in iron and winged armor, the ear pieces of his helmet hid his cheeks altogether.

His large golden bay Turkish stallion bore him on easily despite the weighty armor, throwing his head upward, rattling his bit, and snorting loudly, as if in good omen for the rider. Yatsek turned his iron-covered head toward his wife, and moved his lips as if whispering, but though no distinct word reached her ears she divined that he was giving her the last "Fare thee well!" and such an impulse of yearning and love seized her heart that if she could have, at the cost of her life, changed at that moment to a swallow she would have perched on his shoulder, or on the flag of his lance point, and gone with him; she would not have stopped for one twinkle to calculate.

"Fare thee well, Yatsek! G.o.d guard thee!" cried she, stretching her hands to him. And her eyes were tear-bedewed while he rode past in solemnity, gleaming in the sunlight, and, as it were, rendered sacred by the service imposed on him.

Behind this the regiment of Prince Alexander came up and marched past still others, equally terrible and equally brilliant Then other regiments described a great circle and halted on the plain almost in the places from which they had started in the time of reviewing, but now in marching order.

From the carriages on the height the eye could embrace all the regiments very nearly. Far away and near by were seen crimson uniforms, glittering armor, the flashing of swords, the upturned forest of lances, the broad cloud of streamers, and above them great banners like giant blossoms. From the regiments standing nearer, the breeze brought the odor of horse sweat, and the shouts of commanders, the shrill note of fifes, and the deep sound of kettledrums. But in those shouts, in those sounds, in that delight and that eagerness for battle, there was something triumphant. A perfect confidence in the victory of the cross above the crescent,--that confidence was flowing through every heart in those legions.

The king remained yet for a moment at the carriage of Her Majesty, but when a blessing had been given him with a cross and with relics by the bishop of Cracow, he rushed at a gallop to the army. The air was rent suddenly by the keen sound of trumpets, while ma.s.ses of foot and of cavalry stirred, began slowly to lengthen, and finally those ma.s.ses moved, all of them, westward. In advance were the banners of the light horse, behind them hussars; the dragoons closed the movement.

The prince bishop of Cracow raised with both hands the cross, holding relics as high above his head as was possible:

"O G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have mercy on Thy people!"

Just then more than twenty thousand b.r.e.a.s.t.s raised the anthem which Pan Kohovski had composed for that moment:

"For Thee, O pure Lady, O Mother Immaculate, We go to defend Christ, Our Lord.

"For thee, O dear country, For you, O white eagles, We will crush every enemy.

ON THE FIELD OF GLORY."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Kromer.]

[Footnote 2: His pets.]

[Footnote 3: On Saint Stephen's day people used to cast various kinds of grain at the priest at the altar in memory of the stoning of that saint.]

[Footnote 4: The Elector just mentioned, _i. e_., the Elector of Brandenburg.]

[Footnote 4: The Elector just mentioned, _i. e_., the Elector of Brandenburg.]

[Footnote 5: Among the Poles and Slavs generally death is represented as a woman.]

[Footnote 6: This man is mentioned on page 224.]

[Footnote 7: Jewish p.r.o.nunciation of _vivant_.]