With Fire And Sword Part 60

CHAPTER XXVI.

Hmelnitski remained awhile at Korsun, and then pushed on to Belaya Tserkoff, where he established his capital. The horde was disposed in camp on the other side of the river, sending out parties through the whole province of Kieff. Pan Longin Podbipienta therefore had been grieving in vain over the dearth of Tartar heads. Skshetuski foresaw correctly that the Zaporojians seized by Ponyatovski at Kanyeff gave false information. Tugai Bey not only had not departed, but had not gone even to Chigirin. What is more, new Tartar reinforcements came from every side. The petty sovereigns of Azoff and Astrakhan, who had never been in Poland before, came with four thousand warriors. Twelve thousand of the Nogai horde came, and twenty thousand of the Belgorod and Budjak hordes,--all sworn enemies. .h.i.therto of the Zaporojians and the Cossacks, now brothers and sworn allies against Christian blood.

Finally the Khan Islam Girei himself came with twelve thousand from Perekop. The whole Ukraine suffered from these friends; not only the n.o.bles suffered, but the Russian people, whose villages were burned, cattle driven away, and whose wives and children were hurried into captivity. In those times of murder, burning, and bloodshed there was only one rescue for the peasant, and that was to flee to Hmelnitski,--where from being a victim he became a destroyer, and ravaged his own country; but at least his life was safe. Unhappy country! When rebellion broke out in it Pan Nikolai Pototski punished and wasted it to begin with; then the Zaporojians and the Tartars, who came as if for its liberation; and now Yeremi Vishnyevetski hovered over it.

Therefore all who were able fled to Hmelnitski's camp; even n.o.bles fled, for other means of safety were not to be found. Thanks to this, Hmelnitski increased in power; and if he remained long in Belaya Tserkoff and did not move at once to the heart of the Commonwealth, it was above all to give order to these lawless and wild elements.

In his iron hands they changed quickly into military strength. Skeleton regiments of trained Zaporojians were at hand; the mob was divided among these. Colonels were appointed from koshevoi atamans of long standing; single parties were sent out to capture castles, and receive thereby training for battle. They were men valiant by nature, fitted beyond all others for war, used to arms, familiar with fire and the b.l.o.o.d.y front of battle, through Tartar raids.

Two colonels, Handja and Ostap, went to Nestorvar, which they captured, cutting to pieces all the Jews and n.o.bles among its inhabitants, and beheading Prince Chetvertinski's miller on the threshold of the castle.

Ostap made the princess his captive. Others went in other directions, and success attended their arms; for a terror of the heart seized the Poles,--a terror "unusual to that people," who dropped the weapons from their hands and lost their strength.

More than once it happened that the colonels importuned Hmelnitski: "Why don't you move on Warsaw? Why do you stay resting here, getting information from wizards, and filling yourself with gorailka, letting the Poles recover from their terror and a.s.semble their men?" More than once also the drunken crowd howled in the night-time, surrounding the quarters of Hmelnitski, asking him to lead them against the Poles. The hetman had raised the rebellion and given it a terrible power, but now he began to see that this power was urging him forward to an unknown future; therefore he gazed often into that future with uncertain eye, tried to solve the riddle of it, and in the face of that future was disturbed at heart.

As has been said, among those colonels and atamans he alone knew what terrible power there was in the apparent weakness of the Commonwealth.

He had raised the rebellion, gained the victory at Joltiya Vodi, at Korsun had swept away the armies of the Crown,--but what further?

He a.s.sembled the colonels then in council, and glancing at them with bloodshot eyes before which they all trembled, proposed the very same question,--"What further? What do you want? To go to Warsaw? Then Prince Vishnyevetski will be here, and kill your wives and children with the speed of lightning. He will leave only earth and water behind, and will follow to Warsaw, marching with the whole power of the n.o.bles who will join him. Then, caught between two fires, we shall perish; if not in battle, empaled on stakes. You cannot depend on Tartar friends.h.i.+p. To-day they are with us; to-morrow they may turn against us and rush off to the Crimea, or sell our heads to the Poles. Well, what more will you say? March on Vishnyevetski? He would detain our forces and those of the Tartar till armies could be enrolled in the heart of the Commonwealth and brought to his aid. Choose!"

The alarmed colonels were silent, and Hmelnitski continued:--

"Why are you silent? Why do you urge me no longer to go to Warsaw? If you know not what to do, then rely on me, and with G.o.d's help I will save my own head and yours, and win satisfaction for the Zaporojian army and all the Cossacks."

In fact, there remained one method,--negotiation. Hmelnitski knew well how much he could extort from the Commonwealth in that way. He calculated that the Diets would rather agree to liberal concessions than to taxes, levies of troops, and war, which would have to be long and difficult. Finally, he knew that in Warsaw there was a strong party, and at the head of it the king himself (news of whose death had not yet come), with the chancellor and many n.o.bles, who would be glad to hinder the growth of the colossal fortunes of the magnates of the Ukraine, and to create a power for the hands of the king out of the Cossacks, conclude a permanent peace with them, and use those thousands of warriors for foreign wars. In these conditions Hmelnitski might acquire a distinguished position for himself, receive the baton of hetman from the king, and gain countless concessions for the Cossacks.

This was why he remained long in Belaya Tserkoff. He armed his men, sent general orders in every direction, collected the people, created whole armies, took possession of castles, for he knew they would negotiate only with power, but he did not move into the heart of the Commonwealth. If he could conclude peace by negotiation, then either the weapon would drop from the hand of Vishnyevetski, or, if the prince would not lay it aside, then not Hmelnitski, but Vishnyevetski, would be the rebel carrying on war against the will of the king and the Diets. He would move then on Vishnyevetski, but by command of the king and the Commonwealth; and the last hour would have struck not for Vishnyevetski alone, but for all the kinglets of the Ukraine, with their fortunes and their lands.

Thus meditated the self-created Zaporojian hetman; such was the pile that he built for the future. But on the scaffolding of this edifice the dark birds, Care, Doubt, Fear, sat many a time, and ominous was their croaking. Will the peace party be strong enough in Warsaw? Will it begin negotiations with him? What will the Diet and the Senate say?

Will they close their ears in the capital to the groans and cries of the Ukraine? Will they shut their eyes to the flames of conflagration?

Will not negotiations be prevented by the influence of the magnates possessing those immeasurable estates, the preservation of which will be for their interest? And has the Commonwealth become so terror-stricken that it will forgive him?

On the other hand, Hmelnitski's soul was rent by the doubt. Has not the rebellion become too inflamed and too developed? Would those wild ma.s.ses allow themselves to be confined within any limits? Suppose he, Hmelnitski, should conclude peace, the cut-throats may continue to murder and burn in his name, or take vengeance on his head for their deluded hopes. Then that swollen river, that sea, that storm! An awful position! If the outbreak had been weaker, they would not negotiate with him, by reason of his weakness; but because the rebellion is mighty, negotiations, by the force of things, may be defeated. Then what will happen?

When such thoughts besieged the weighty head of the hetman he shut himself up in his quarters, and drank whole days and nights. Then among the colonels and the mob the report went around: "The hetman is drinking!" and following his example, all drank. Discipline was relaxed, prisoners killed, fights sprang up, booty was stolen. The day of judgment was beginning, the reign of horror and ghastliness. Belaya Tserkoff was turned into a real Inferno.

One day Vygovski, a n.o.ble captured at Korsun and made secretary to the hetman, came in. He began to shake the drinker without ceremony, till seizing him by the shoulders he seated him on the low bench and brought him to his senses.

"What is it? What the plague--" demanded Hmelnitski.

"Rise up, Hetman, and come to yourself!" answered Vygovski. "An emba.s.sy has come."

Hmelnitski sprang to his feet, and in a moment was sober.

"Hi, there!" he cried to the Cossack sitting at the threshold, "give me my cap and baton. Who has come? From whom?"

"The priest Patroni Lasko, from Gushchi, from the voevoda of Bratslav."

"From Pan Kisel?"

"Yes."

"Glory to the Father and Son, glory to the Holy Ghost and to the Holy Most Pure!" said Hmelnitski, making the sign of the cross. His face became clear, he regained his good humor,--negotiations had begun.

But that day there came news of a character directly opposed to the peaceful emba.s.sy of Pan Kisel. It was stated that Prince Yeremi, after he had given rest to his army, wearied with its march through the woods and swamps, had entered into the rebellious country; that he was killing, burning, beheading; that a division sent under Skshetuski had dispersed a band of two thousand Cossacks with a mob and cut them to pieces; that the prince himself had taken Pogrebische, the property of the princes Zbaraski, and had left only earth and water behind him.

Awful things were related of the storm and taking of Pogrebische,--for it was a nest of the most stubborn murderers. The prince, it was said, told the soldiers: "Kill them so they will feel they are dying." The soldiers therefore allowed themselves the wildest excesses of cruelty.

Out of the whole town not a single soul escaped. Seven hundred prisoners were hanged, two hundred seated on stakes. Mention is made also of boring out eyes with augers and burning on slow fires. The rebellion was put down at once in the whole neighborhood. The inhabitants either fled to Hmelnitski or received the lord of Lubni on their knees with bread and salt, howling for mercy. The smaller bands were all rubbed out, and in the woods, as stated by fugitives from Samorodka, Spichina, Pleskoff, Vakhnovka, there was not a tree on which a Cossack was not hanging. And all this was done not far from Belaya Tserkoff and the many-legioned armies of Hmelnitski.

So when Hmelnitski heard of this he began to roar like a wounded aurochs. On one side negotiations, on the other the sword. If he marches against the prince, it will mean that he does not want the negotiations proposed through Pan Kisel, the Lord of Brusiloff. His only hope was in the Tartars. Hmelnitski jumped up and hurried to the quarters of Tugai Bey.

"Tugai Bey, my friend!" said he, after giving the usual salaams, "as you saved me at Joltiya Vodi and Korsun, save me now! An envoy has come here from the voevoda of Bratslav, with a letter, in which the voevoda promises satisfaction, and to the Zaporojian army the restoration of its ancient freedom, on condition that I cease from war, which I must do to show my sincerity and good-will. At the same time news has come that my enemy, Prince Vishnyevetski, has razed Pogrebische and left no man living. He is cutting down my warriors, empaling them, boring out their eyes with augers. I cannot move on him. To you I come, asking that you move on your enemy and mine with your Tartars; otherwise he will soon attack our camp here."

The murza, sitting on a pile of carpets taken at Korsun or stolen from the houses of n.o.bles, swayed backward and forward some time, contracted his eyes as if for closer thinking; at last he said,--

"Allah! I cannot do that."

"Why?" asked Hmelnitski.

"Because, as it is, I have lost for you beys and men enough at Joltiya Vodi and Korsun, why should I lose more? Yeremi is a great warrior! I will march against him if you march, but not alone. I am not such a fool as to lose in one battle all that I have gained so far; better send out my detachments for booty and captives. I have done enough for you unbelieving dogs. I will not go myself, and I will dissuade the Khan from going. I have spoken."

"You swore to give me aid."

"I did; but I swore to make war at your side, not instead of you. Go away from here!"

"I let you take captives from my own people, gave you booty, gave you the hetmans."

"Yes, for if you had not I should have given you to them."

"I will go to the Khan."

"Be off, I tell you!"

The pointed teeth of the murza had already begun to gleam from under his mustache. Hmelnitski knew that he had nothing to get from him, and it was dangerous to stop longer; he rose therefore and went in fact to the Khan.

But he got the same answer from the Khan. The Tartars had their own minds and were looking for their own profit. Instead of venturing on a general battle against a leader who was considered invincible, they preferred to send out plundering parties and enrich themselves without bloodshed.

Hmelnitski returned in a rage to his own quarters, and from despair was going to the decanter again, when Vygovski took it away from him.

"You will not drink, worthy hetman!" said he. "There is an envoy, and you must finish with him first."

Hmelnitski was furious. "I will have you and the envoy empaled!"

"I will not give you gorailka. Are you not ashamed, when fortune has raised you so high, to fill yourself with gorailka, like a common Cossack? Pshaw! it must not be. News of the envoy's arrival has spread about the army, and the colonels want a council. It is not for you to drink now, but to forge the iron while it is hot; for now you can conclude peace and receive all you want; afterward it will be too late, and my life and yours are involved in this. You should send an envoy at once to Warsaw, and ask the king for favor."

"You are a wise head," said Hmelnitski. "Command them to ring the bell for council, and tell the colonels on the square that I shall come out directly."

Vygovski went out, and in a moment the bell was ringing for council. At the sound the Zaporojian army began to a.s.semble immediately. The leaders and colonels sat down,--the terrible Krivonos, Hmelnitski's right hand; Krechovski, the sword of the Cossacks; the old and experienced Filon Daidyalo, colonel of Kropivnik; Fedor Loboda, of Pereyaslav; the cruel Fedorenko, of Kalnik; the wild Pushkarenko, of Poltava, whose command was composed of herdsmen alone; Shumeiko, of Nyejin; the fiery Chernota, of Gadyach; Yakubovich, of Chigirin; besides Nosach, Gladki, Adamovich, Glukh, Pulyan, Panich. Not all the colonels were present; for some were on expeditions, and some were in the other world,--sent there by Prince Yeremi.

The Tartars were not invited this time to the council. The Brotherhood a.s.sembled on the square. The crowding mult.i.tudes were driven away with clubs and even with whirlbats, on which occasion cases of death were not wanting.