With Fire And Sword Part 87

Volodyovski then spurred his horse and sped on toward Pan Yan, but Zagloba rode for some time in silence by the side of Podbipienta.

"Are you not of my opinion, that if there were no love affairs a power of evil would cease in the world?"

"Whatever G.o.d has destined to any one, will not avoid him," answered the Lithuanian.

"But you never answer to the point. That is one affair, and this is another. Who caused the destruction of Troy, hei? And isn't this war about fair locks? Hmelnitski wanted Chaplinski's woman, or Chaplinski wanted Hmelnitski's; and we are breaking our necks on account of their sinful desires."

"Those are dishonorable loves; but there are honorable ones, through which the glory of G.o.d is increased."

"Now you have hit the point better. But are you going soon to work in that vineyard yourself? I hear that a scarf is bound to you for the war."

"Ah, brother! brother!"

"But three heads are in the way, are they?"

"Ah, that's the truth!"

"Well, I tell you: give a good blow, and cut them off at once from Hmelnitski, the Khan, and Bogun."

"Oh, if they would only stand in a row!" said Pan Longin, in a voice full of emotion, raising his eyes to heaven.

Meanwhile Volodyovski rode by Skshetuski, and looked from under his helmet in silence at his pallid face, till at last their stirrups touched.

"Yan," said he, "it is bad for you to forget yourself."

"I am not forgetting myself, I am praying," answered Skshetuski.

"That is a holy and praiseworthy thing; but you are not a monk, to be occupied in prayer alone."

Pan Yan turned his suffering face slowly to Volodyovski, and inquired with a dull voice, full of deathly resignation: "Tell me, Michael, what is left to me now but a monk's habit?"

"It remains to you to rescue her," answered Volodyovski.

"I will do that, if it takes my last breath. But even if I should find her alive, will it not be too late? Preserve me, O G.o.d, for I can think of everything, only not of that, G.o.d save my reason! I desire nothing more than to rescue her from those infamous hands and let her find an asylum, such as I myself shall seek. Evidently it was not the will of G.o.d. Let me pray, Michael, and don't touch my bleeding wound."

Volodyovski's heart was pressed. He wished still to console his friend, to speak of hope; but the words would not pa.s.s his lips, and they rode on in dull silence. Only the lips of Skshetuski moved rapidly in prayer, with which he wished evidently to drive away terrible thoughts.

But the little knight was afraid when he looked at that face in the moonlight; for it seemed to him altogether like the face of a monk, stern, emaciated by fasting and mortification. And then that voice began again to sing, in the rear,--

"You will find when the war is over, poor fellow, You will find when the war is over, Everything empty at home, And your skin full of wounds."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

Skshetuski so marched with his detachment that he rested during the day in forests and ravines, throwing out pickets carefully, and pushed forward only in the night. Whenever he approached a village he usually surrounded it so that not a man went out, took provisions, feed for his horses, but above all collected information concerning the enemy; then he marched away without inflicting harm on the people. But when out of sight he changed his road abruptly, so that the enemy in the village might not know in what direction he had gone. The object of his expedition was to discover whether Krivonos with his forty thousand men was still besieging Kamenyets, or having given up the fruitless siege, was marching to a.s.sist Hmelnitski so as to join him for a general engagement; and further what the Dobrudja Tartars were doing,--whether they had crossed the Dnieper already and joined Krivonos, or were still on the other bank. These were important items for the Polish army, which the commanders should have tried to obtain; but being men without experience, it did not enter their heads to do so. Yeremi therefore took that burden on himself. If it should appear that Krivonos, with the hordes of Belgorod and Dobrudja, had abandoned the siege of the impregnable Kamenyets and was marching to Hmelnitski, then it behooved them to attack the latter as quickly as possible before he had grown to his highest power.

Meanwhile the commander-in-chief. Prince Dominik Zaslavski Ostrogski, was not hastening, and at the time of Skshetuski's departure he was expected at the camp in two or three days. Evidently he was feasting along the road, according to his custom, and felt well; but the most favorable moment for breaking the power of Hmelnitski was pa.s.sing, and Prince Yeremi was in despair at the thought that if the war should be carried on further in this fashion, not only Krivonos and the forces beyond the Dniester would come to Hmelnitski in season, but also the Khan himself at the head of all the forces from Perekop, Nogai, and Azoff.

There were tidings in camp that the Khan had already crossed the Dnieper, and was moving westward day and night with two hundred thousand horse; but day after day pa.s.sed, and Prince Dominik did not arrive. It became more and more likely that the troops at Cholganski Kamen would have to meet forces five times more numerous, and in case of defeat nothing would prevent the enemy from breaking into the heart of the Commonwealth at Cracow and Warsaw.

Krivonos was the more dangerous in this, that in case the commanders wished to push into the heart of the Ukraine, he, by going from Kamenyets directly northward to Konstantinoff, could bar their retreat, and in every case they would be taken then between two fires.

Skshetuski determined therefore not only to gain information concerning Krivonos, but to check him. Penetrated with the importance of this task, on the accomplishment of which the fate of the whole army was in part dependent, he risked willingly his own life and the lives of his soldiers, though that undertaking might have been considered insane or mad if the young knight had had the intention of checking with five hundred men in an offensive battle the forty thousand men of Krivonos reinforced by the hordes of Belgorod and Dobrudja. But Skshetuski was too experienced a soldier to rush into insane undertakings, and he knew perfectly well that in case of battle the torrent would sweep over the bodies of himself and his men in an hour. He seized upon other means.

He gave out among his own soldiers that they were merely the advance guard of a whole division of the terrible prince, and this report he spread everywhere in all the farms, villages, and towns through which it came to him to pa.s.s. And in truth it spread like a flash of lightning along Zbruch, Smotrich, Studenitsa, Ushka, Kalusik, and from them it reached the Dniester and flew on farther as if driven by the wind from Kamenyets to Yagorlik. It was repeated by Turkish pashas in Khotim, the Zaporojians in Yampol, and the Tartars in Rashkoff. And again was heard that famous cry, "Yarema is coming!" from which the hearts of the rebellious people sank, and from which they trembled, knowing neither the day nor the hour.

And no one doubted the truth of the report. The commanders would fall upon Hmelnitski, and Yeremi on Krivonos,--that lay in the order of things. Krivonos himself believed in it, and his hands dropped. What was he to do? Move on the prince? At Konstantinoff there was another spirit in his men and he had more troops; still they were beaten, decimated, barely escaped with their lives. Krivonos was sure that his Cossacks would fight madly against all other armies of the Commonwealth, and against every other leader, but with the approach of Yeremi they would speed away like a flock of swans before an eagle, or like the thistle-down of the steppes before the wind.

To wait for the prince at Kamenyets was still worse. Krivonos determined to hurry eastward as far as Bratslav, to avoid his evil spirit and move toward Hmelnitski. He knew, it is true, that circling around in this way he would not arrive in time; but at least he would hear of the results in season, and plan for his own safety.

A new report came with the wind, that Hmelnitski was already defeated.

Skshetuski had spread it purposely, as he had the previous report. This time the unfortunate Krivonos knew not what to do.

Later he determined all the more to march to the east and push on as far as possible into the steppes; maybe he would meet the Tartars and find shelter among them. But first of all he wished to be sure; therefore he looked carefully among his colonels to find a man trusty and prepared for everything, so as to send him with a party to get information. But the choice was difficult; there was a lack of volunteers, and it was absolutely necessary to find a man who in case he should fall into the hands of the enemy would not disclose the plans of retreat, even if burned with fire, empaled on a stake, or broken on a wheel. At last Krivonos found the man. One night he gave the order to call Bogun, and said to him,--

"Do you hear, Yurku, my friend Yarema is marching on us with a great force; we shall all perish, unfortunates!"

"I have heard that he is coming,--you have already spoken of that, father. But why should we perish?"

"We cannot withstand him. We could another, but not Yeremi. The Cossacks are afraid of him."

"But I am not afraid of him. I cut to pieces a regiment of his at Va.s.silyevka beyond the Dnieper."

"I know that you are not afraid of him; your fame of a Cossack and a hero is equal to his as a prince. But I cannot give him battle, for my Cossacks are unwilling. Remember what they said at the council,--how they rushed on me with sabres because I wanted to lead them to slaughter."

"Then we will go to Hmelnitski; there we shall find blood and booty."

"They say that Hmelnitski is already defeated."

"I do not believe that, Father Maksim. Hmelnitski is a fox; he will not strike the Poles without the Tartars."

"I think so too, but we must find out. Then we could go around this devil of a Yeremi and join Hmel; but we must have information. Now, if some one who has no fear of Yeremi were to go with a party and take prisoners, I should fill his cap with ruddy sequins."

"I'll go, Father Maksim,--not for sequins, but for Cossack, for heroic glory."

"You are the next ataman to me, and since you are willing to go, you will become first ataman yet over the Cossacks, good hero, for you are not afraid of Yeremi. Go, my falcon, and hereafter you have but to ask for what you want. Well, I tell you, if you were not going I should go myself; but it is not for me to go."

"No; for if you were to go, father, the Cossacks would say that you were saving your head and would scatter over the world, but when I go their courage will increase."

"Shall I give you many men?"

"I will not take many; it is easier to hide and approach with a small force. But give me about five hundred good warriors, and my head for it, I will bring you informants,--not soldiers, but officers from whom you will learn everything."

"Go at once! They are firing cannon from Kamenyets with joy,--salvation to the Poles and destruction to us innocents."

Bogun went out, and began to prepare at once for the road. His heroes, as was the fixed practice on such occasions, drank to the verge of destruction, "before Mother Death should clasp them to her breast." He too drank with them till he was snorting from gorailka.