With Fire And Sword Part 134

The hetman sprang at them like a tiger. "And who gained Joltiya Vodi, who Korsun, who Pilavtsi?"

"You!" answered Voronchenko, roughly, "but Vishnyevetski was not there."

Hmelnitski tore his hair. "I promised the Khan lodgings in the castle to-night!" howled he, in despair.

To this Kulak replied: "What you promised the Khan concerns your head.

Have a care lest it drop from your neck; but do not push us to the storm, do not destroy servants of G.o.d! Surround the Poles with trenches, put ramparts round your guns, or woe to you!"

"Woe to you!" repeated gloomy voices.

"Woe to you!" answered Hmelnitski.

And thus they conversed, terrible as thunders. At last Hmelnitski staggered, and threw himself on a bundle of sheepskins covered with carpet in the corner of the tent. The colonels stood around him with hanging heads, and silence lasted for a long time. At length the hetman looked up, and cried hoa.r.s.ely: "Gorailka!"

"You will not drink!" said Vygovski, "The Khan will send for you."

At that time the Khan was about five miles from the field of battle, without knowledge of what was pa.s.sing. The night was calm and warm. He was sitting at the tent in the midst of mullahs and agas in expectation of news; while waiting, he was eating dates from a silver plate standing near. At times he looked at the starry heavens and muttered, "Mohammed Rosulla!"

Meanwhile Subahazi, on a foaming horse, rushed in, breathless, and covered with blood. He sprang from the saddle, and approaching quickly, began to make obeisance, waiting for a question.

"Speak!" said the Khan, with his mouth full of dates.

The words were burning Subahazi's mouth like flame, but he dared not speak without the usual t.i.tles. He began therefore in the following fas.h.i.+on, bowing continually,--

"Most mighty Khan of all the hordes, grandson of Mohammed, absolute monarch, wise lord, fortunate lord, lord of the tree commended from the east to the west, lord of the blooming tree--"

Here the Khan waved his hand and interrupted. Seeing blood on Subahazi's face, and in his eyes pain, sorrow, and despair, he spat out the uneaten dates on his hand and gave them to one of the mullahs, who took them as a mark of extraordinary honor and began to eat them. The Khan said,--

"Speak quickly, Subahazi, and wisely! Is the camp of the unbeliever taken?"

"G.o.d did not give it."

"The Poles?"

"Victorious."

"Hmelnitski?"

"Beaten."

"Tugai Bey?"

"Wounded."

"G.o.d is one!" said the Khan. "How many of the Faithful have gone to Paradise?"

Subahazi raised his arm and pointed with a b.l.o.o.d.y hand to the sparkling heavens. "As many as of those lights at the foot of Allah," said he, solemnly.

The heavy face of the Khan became purple; rage seized him by the breast. "Where is that dog," inquired he, "who promised that I should sleep to-night in the castle? Where is that venomous serpent whom G.o.d will trample under my foot? Let him stand before me and give an account of his disgusting promises."

A number of murzas hurried off for Hmelnitski. The Khan calmed himself by degrees, and at last said: "G.o.d is one!" Then he turned to Subahazi.

"There is blood on thy face!"

"It is the blood of the unbeliever," answered the warrior.

"Tell how you shed it, and console our ears with the bravery of the believers."

Here Subahazi began to give an extended account of the whole battle, praising the bravery of Tugai Bey, of Galga, of Nureddin; he was not silent either of Hmelnitski, but praised him as well as the others,--the will of G.o.d alone and the fury of the unbelievers were the causes of the defeat. But one circ.u.mstance struck the Khan in the narrative; namely, that they did not fire at the Tartars in the beginning of the battle, and that the cavalry of the prince attacked them only when at last they stood in the way.

"Allah! they did not want war with me," said the Khan, "but now it is too late."

So it was in reality. Prince Yeremi, from the beginning of the battle, had forbidden to fire at the Tartars, wis.h.i.+ng to instil into the soldiers that negotiations with the Khan were already commenced, and that the hordes were standing on the side of the mob merely for show.

It was only later that it came to meeting the Tartars by the force of events.

The Khan shook his head, thinking at that moment whether it would not be better yet to turn his arms against Hmelnitski, when the hetman himself stood suddenly before him. Hmelnitski was now calm, and came up with head erect, looking boldly into the eyes of the Khan; on his face were depicted daring and craft.

"Approach, traitor!" said the Khan.

"The hetman of the Cossacks approaches, and he is not a traitor, but a faithful ally, to whom you have pledged a.s.sistance not in victory alone," said Hmelnitski.

"Go pa.s.s the night in the castle! Go pull the Poles out of the trenches as you promised me!"

"Great Khan of all the hordes!" said Hmelnitski, with a powerful voice, "you are mighty, and except the Sultan the mightiest on earth; you are wise and powerful, but can you send forth an arrow from your bow to the stars, or can you measure the depth of the sea?"

The Khan looked at him with astonishment.

"You cannot," continued Hmelnitski, with still more force; "so can I not measure all the pride and insolence of Yeremi! If I could dream that he would not be terrified at you, O Khan, that he would not be submissive at sight of you, would not beat with his forehead before you, but would raise his insolent hand against your person, shed the blood of your warriors, and insult you, O mighty monarch, as well as the least of your murzas,--if I could have dared to think that, I should have shown contempt to you whom I honor and love."

"Allah!" said the Khan, more and more astonished.

"But I will tell you this," continued Hmelnitski, with increasing a.s.surance in his voice and his manner: "you are great and powerful; nations and monarchs from the east to the west incline before you and call you a lion; Yeremi alone does not fall on his face before your beard. If then you do not rub him out, if you do not bend his neck and ride on his back, your power is in vain, your glory is empty; for they will say that one Polish prince has dishonored the Tsar of the Crimea and received no punishment,--that he is greater, that he is mightier than you."

Dull silence followed; the murzas, the agas, and the mullahs looked on the face of the Khan, as on the sun, holding the breath in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He had his eyes closed, and was thinking. Hmelnitski was resting on his baton and waiting confidently.

"You have said it," answered the Khan at last. "I will bend the neck of Yeremi; I will sit on his back as on a horse, so it may not be said from the east to the west that an unbelieving dog has disgraced me."

"G.o.d is great!" cried the murzas, with one voice.

Joy shot from the eyes of Hmelnitski. At one step he had averted destruction hanging over his head, and turned a doubtful ally into a most faithful one. At every moment that lion knew how to turn himself into a serpent.

Both camps till late at night were as active as bees warmed by the spring sun in the swarming-season, while on the battle-field slept--an endless and eternal sleep--the knights thrust through with spears, cut with swords, pierced with arrows and bullets. The moon rose, and began her course over the field of death, was reflected in pools of stiffened blood, brought forth from the darkness every moment new piles of slain, pa.s.sed from some bodies, came quietly to others, looked into open and lifeless eyeb.a.l.l.s, lighted up blue faces, fragments of broken weapons, bodies of horses; and her rays grew pale, at times very pale, as if terrified with what they saw. Along the field there ran here and there, alone and in little groups, certain ominous figures,--camp-followers and servants, who had come to plunder the slain, as jackals follow lions. But superst.i.tious fear drove them away at last. There was something awful and mysterious in that field covered with corpses, in that calmness and quiet of human forms recently alive, and in that silent harmony with which Poles, Turks, Tartars, and Cossacks lay side by side. The wind at times rustled in the bushes growing over the field, and to the soldiers watching in the trenches it seemed that those were the souls of the slain, circling above their bodies. It was said in fact that when midnight had struck in Zbaraj, over the whole field, from the bulwark of the Poles to the tabor of the Cossacks, there rose with a rustle as it were a countless flock of birds. Wailing voices were heard also in the air, enormous sighs, which made men's hair stand on end, and groans. Those who were yet to fall in that struggle, and whose ears were more open to cries from beyond the earth, heard clearly the Polish spirits, when flying away, cry: "Before thy eyes, O Lord, we lay down our sins;" and the Cossacks groan: "O Christ, O Christ, have mercy on us!" As they had fallen in a war of brothers, they could not fly straight to light eternal, but were predestined to fly somewhere in the dark distance, and hover in the wind over this vale of tears, to weep and groan by night, till the full remission of their offences,--till they should receive pardon at the feet of Christ, and oblivion for their sins.

But at that time the hearts of men grew harder yet, and no angel of peace flew over the field.

CHAPTER LVIII.