With Fire And Sword Part 75

"The Lord then sent me some profit among the robbers. But I was tormented from not knowing what had happened to you, and lest Bogun had carried off the lady; till they brought me word that he was lying in Cherkasi barely alive, wounded by the prince's men. I went to Cherkasi, since, as you are aware, I know how to make plasters and dress wounds.

The Cossacks knew that I could do this. Well, Donyets, a colonel, sent me to Cherkasi, and went with me himself to nurse that robber. There a burden fell from my heart, for I heard that our young lady had escaped with that n.o.ble. I went then to Bogun. I was thinking, 'Will he know me or not?' But he was lying in a fever, and at first didn't know me.

Later on he knew me, and said, 'You were going with a letter to Rozlogi?' 'Yes,' I answered. Then he said again, 'I struck you in Chigirin?' 'Yes.' 'Then you serve Pan Skshetuski?' 'I am serving no one now,' I replied. 'I had more evil than good in that service, therefore I chose to go to the Cossacks for freedom; and I am nursing you now for ten days, and am restoring you to health.' He believed me, and became very confidential. I learned from him that Rozlogi was burned, that he had killed the two princes. The other Kurtsevichi wished at first to go to our prince, but could not, and escaped to the Lithuanian army. But the worst was when he remembered that fat n.o.ble. Then, my master, he gnashed his teeth like a man cracking nuts."

"Was he long sick?"

"Long, long. His wounds healed quickly; then they opened again, for he didn't take care of them at first. I sat many a night with him,--may he be cut up!--as with some good man. And you must know, my master, that I swore by my salvation to take vengeance on him; and I will keep my oath, though I have to follow him all my life; for he maltreated me, an innocent person, and pounded me like a dog. And I am no trash, either!

He must perish at my hand unless somebody else kills him first. I tell you that about a hundred times I had a chance, for often there was no one near him but me. I thought to myself, 'Shall I stab him or not?'

But I was ashamed to kill him in his bed."

"It was praiseworthy of you not to kill him while sick and weak. That would be the deed of a peasant, not of a n.o.ble."

"And you know, my master, I had the same thought. I recollected too that when my parents sent me from home my grandfather blessed me, and said, 'Remember, you dunce, that you are a n.o.ble. Have ambition, serve faithfully; but don't let any man trample on you.' He said also that when a n.o.ble acts in peasant fas.h.i.+on the Lord Jesus weeps. I recalled that phrase and I restrained myself. I had to let the chance pa.s.s. And now he was more confidential. More than once he asked, 'How shall I reward you?' And I said, 'Any way you wish,' And I cannot complain. He supplied me bountifully, and I took all he gave me; for I thought to myself, 'Why should I leave it in the hands of a robber?' On his account others gave me presents; for I tell you, my master, that there is no one so beloved as he, both by the men from below and the mob, though there is not a n.o.ble in the Commonwealth who has such contempt for the mob as he."

Here Jendzian began to twist his head as if he remembered and wondered at something; and after a while he said,--

"He is a strange man, and it must be confessed that he is altogether of n.o.ble nature. And that young lady,--but he loves her! Oh, mighty G.o.d, but he loves her! As soon as he was a little restored, Dontsovna came to him to soothsay; but she told him nothing good. She is a brazen-faced giantess who is in friends.h.i.+p with devils, but she is a good-looking woman. When she laughs you would swear that a mare was neighing in the meadow. She has white teeth so strong that she might chew up a breastplate. When she walks the ground trembles. And, by the evident visitation of G.o.d, my good looks attracted her. Then she wouldn't pa.s.s without catching me by the head or the sleeve and jerking me. More than once she said, 'Come!' But I was afraid that the devil might break my neck if I went, and then I should lose all I had gathered; so I answered, 'Haven't you enough of others?' She said, 'You please me; though you are a stripling, you please me.' 'Be off, ba.s.s-viol!' I said. Then said she again, 'I like you, I like you!'"

"But you saw the soothsaying?"

"I did; and I heard it. There was a sort of smudge, a seething and squeaking, and shadows, so that I was frightened. She was standing in the middle of the room, looking stern, with sullen black brows, and repeated: 'The Pole is near her! the Pole is near her! Chili! huk!

chili! the Pole is near her!' Then she poured wheat into a sieve, and looked. The grains went around like insects, and she repeated: 'Chili!

huk! chili! the Pole is near her!' Oh, my master, if he were not such a robber it would be sad to look at his despair! After every answer she gave he used to grow white as a s.h.i.+rt, fall on his back, clasp his hands over his head, twist and whine, and beg forgiveness of the princess that he came with violence to Rozlogi and killed her cousins.

'Where art thou, cuckoo, the loved one, the only one? I would have borne you in my arms, and now I cannot live without you! I will not approach you. I will be your slave if my eyes can only see you!' Then he remembered Zagloba again, ground his teeth, bit the bed, till sleep overpowered him; and in sleep he groaned and sighed."

"But did she never prophesy favorably for him?"

"I don't know, my master, for he recovered, and besides I left him. The priest Lasko came, so Bogun arranged that I should go with him to Gushchi. The robbers there found out that I had property of different kinds, and I too made no secret of the fact that I was going to help my parents."

"And they didn't rob you?"

"Perhaps they would have done so, but fortunately there were no Tartars there then, and the Cossacks did not dare to rob me from fear of Bogun.

Besides they took me for one of their own. Even Hmelnitski himself ordered me to keep my ears open and report what would be said at the voevoda's, if there should be a meeting there. May the hangman light his way! I went then to Gushchi. Krivonos's detachments came and killed Father Lasko. I buried half my treasure, and escaped with the rest when I heard that you were near Zaslav. Praise be to G.o.d on high that you are in good health, and that you are preparing for your wedding. Then the end of every evil will come. I told those scoundrels who went against the prince our lord, that they wouldn't come back. They have caught it. Now maybe the war is over."

"How over? It is only beginning now with Hmelnitski."

"And you will fight after the wedding?"

"But did you think that cowardice would seize me at the wedding?"

"I didn't think that. I know that whomsoever it seizes, it won't seize you. I just ask; for when I take to my parents what I have collected I should like to go with you. Maybe G.o.d will help me to avenge my wrong on Bogun; for since it is not proper to take an unfair advantage, where shall I find him, if not in the field? He will not hide himself."

"What a determined fellow you are!"

"Let every one have his own. And as I promised to follow him to Turkey, it cannot be otherwise. And now I will go with you to Tarnopol, and then to the wedding. But why do you go to Bar by Tarnopol? It is not on the road in any way."

"I must take home my regiment."

"I understand."

"Now give me something to eat," said Pan Yan.

"I've been looking out for that. The stomach is the main thing."

"After we have eaten we will start at once."

"Praise be to G.o.d for that, though my poor nag is worn to death."

"I will order them to give you a pack-horse; you can ride on it."

"Thank you humbly," said Jendzian, smiling with delight at the thought that including the purse and the belt a third present had come to him now.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

Pan Yan rode at the head of the prince's squadrons, but to Zbaraj instead of Tarnopol, for a new order had come to march to the latter place; and on the road he told his faithful attendant his own adventures,--how he had been taken in captivity at the Saitch, how long he had remained there, and how much he had suffered before Hmelnitski had liberated him. They advanced slowly; for though they had no trains or baggage, their road lay through a country which was so ruined that the greatest exertions were necessary to obtain provisions for men and horses. In places they met crowds of famished people, especially women and children, who implored G.o.d for death or Tartar captivity; for then, though in bonds, they would be fed. And still it was harvest time in that rich land flowing with milk and honey; but the parties of Krivonos had destroyed everything that could be destroyed, and the remnant of the inhabitants fed themselves on the bark of the trees. Near Yampol they first entered a country which was not so much injured by war, and having had more rest and provisions in plenty, they went with hurried march to Zbaraj, where they arrived in five days after leaving Sukhojintsi.

There was a great concourse in Zbaraj. Prince Yeremi was there with his whole army, and besides him no small number of soldiers and n.o.bles had come. War hung in the air, nothing else was mentioned; the town and neighborhood were swarming with armed men. The peace party in Warsaw, maintained in its hopes by Pan Kisel, the voevoda of Bratslav, had not given up, it is true, negotiations, and continued to believe that it would be possible to allay the storm with them; still they understood that negotiations could have results only when there was a powerful army to support them. The Diet of convocation was held therefore amidst the threatenings and thunderings of war such as usually precede an outbreak. The general militia was called out, and enlisted soldiers were concentrated; and though the chancellor and commanders still believed in peace, the war feeling was predominant in the minds of the n.o.bles. The victories won by Prince Yeremi fired the imagination. The minds of men were burning with a desire for vengeance on the peasants, and a desire to pay back for Joltiya Vodi and Korsun, for the blood of so many thousands who had died martyrs' deaths, for the disgrace and humiliation. The name of the terrible prince was bright with the sunlight of glory,--it was on every lip, in every heart; and together with that name was heard, from the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic to the Wilderness, the ominous word "War!"

War! War! Signs in the heavens announced it also, the excited faces of the populace, the glittering of swords, the nightly howling of dogs before the cottages, and the neighing of horses, catching the odor of blood. War! Escutcheoned men through all the lands and districts and houses and villages drew out their old armor and swords from the storehouses. The youths sang songs about Yeremi; the women prayed before altars; and armored men were marching to the field in Prussia and Livonia as well as in Great Poland and populous Mazovia, and away to G.o.d's own Carpathian peaks, and the dark pine forests of Beskid.

War lay in the nature of things. The plundering movement of the Zaporojie and the popular uprising of the Ukraine mob demanded some higher watchwords than slaughter and robbery, than a struggle against serfdom and the land-grabbing of magnates. Hmelnitski knew this well, and taking advantage of the slumbering irritation from mutual abuses and oppressions, of which there was never a lack in those harsh times, he changed a social into a religious struggle, kindled popular fanaticism, and dug in the very beginning between the two camps an abyss which could be filled neither with parchments nor negotiations, but only with blood.

Wis.h.i.+ng for negotiations from his soul, he wished them only to secure his own power; but afterward--what was to be afterward the Zaporojian hetman did not think; he did not look into the future and had no care for it. He did not know, however, that that abyss which he had created was so great that no negotiations could fill it, at least in such a time as he, Hmelnitski, could demand. The quick politician did not guess that he would not be able to enjoy in peace the b.l.o.o.d.y fruits of his life; and still it was easy to understand that when the armed legions should stand before each other, the parchment for the inscription of treaties would be the field, and the pens, swords and lances.

Events tended, by the force of things, toward war; and even ordinary people, led by instinct alone, felt that it could not be otherwise; and throughout the whole Commonwealth the eyes of men were turned more and more to Yeremi, who from the beginning had proclaimed a war of life and death. In the shadow of his gigantic figure the chancellor, the voevoda of Bratslav, and the commanders were more and more effaced, and among them the powerful Prince Dominik, formal commander-in-chief. Their importance drooped, and obedience to their government decreased. The army and the n.o.bles were ordered to march to Lvoff and then to Gliniani, which they did accordingly in larger and larger divisions.

The regular troops a.s.sembled, and after them men of the nearest provinces; but immediately fresh events began to threaten the authority of the Commonwealth. Now not only the less disciplined squadrons of the militia, not only the private troops, but the regular soldiers when at the place of muster refused obedience to the commanders, and in defiance of orders marched to Zbaraj to place themselves under the command of Yeremi. This was done first by the n.o.bles of Kieff and Bratslav, who had previously served in large part under Yeremi. They were followed by the n.o.bles of Rus and Lubelsk, and these by the troops of the Crown, and it was not difficult to understand that all would follow in their steps.

Yeremi, who had been slighted, neglected by design, was becoming, by the force of things, the hetman and supreme leader of all the power of the Commonwealth. The n.o.bles and the army, devoted to him soul and body, waited only for his nod. Authority, war, peace, the future of the Commonwealth, rested in his hands. Each day he grew, for each day new squadrons marched to him, and he was becoming so gigantic that his shadow began to fall not only on the chancellor and the commanders, but on the Senate, on Warsaw, and the whole Commonwealth.

In circles hostile to him, those of the chancellor at Warsaw and in the camp of the commander-in-chief, in the suite of Prince Dominik, and around the voevoda of Bratslav, they began to mutter against his measureless ambition and pride; the affair of Gadyach was mentioned, when the insolent prince came with four thousand men to Warsaw, and entering the Senate, was ready to hew down all, not excepting the king himself.

"What might not be expected from such a man, and what must he be now after that Xenophontine return from the Trans-Dnieper, after all those military advantages and victories which had given him such an immense reputation? To what unendurable haughtiness must that favor of the soldiers and the n.o.bles raise him? Who will stand against him to-day?

What will become of the Commonwealth in which one citizen rises to such power that he can trample upon the will of the Senate, and s.n.a.t.c.h away their authority from the leaders appointed by the Commonwealth? Does he intend really to decorate Prince Karl with the crown? He is Marius, it is true; but G.o.d grant that he become not a Coriola.n.u.s or a Catiline, for he is equal to both in ambition and pride."

Thus did they speak in Warsaw and in military circles, especially in the suite of Prince Dominik, the rivalry between whom and Yeremi had caused no little damage to the Commonwealth. But that Marius was sitting that moment at Zbaraj, gloomy, unconsulted. Recent victories gave no light to his countenance. Whenever some new squadron of regulars or district militia appeared at Zbaraj he went out to see it, determined its value at a glance, and immediately fell into musing.

Soldiers gathered around him with shouts, fell on their knees before him, crying: "Hail, invincible chief, Slavonic Hercules! We will stand by thee to the death." But he answered: "My respects to you, gentlemen!

We are all soldiers of Christ, and I am too insignificant in rank to be the steward of your blood;" and he returned to his quarters, fled from men, struggled in solitude with his thoughts. In this way whole days pa.s.sed.

Meanwhile the town was in a tumult with swarm after swarm of new troops. The militia drank from morning till night; walking along the streets, they raised quarrels and disputes with officers of foreign levy. The regular soldiers, feeling also the reins of discipline relaxed, indulged in eating, drinking, and play. Every day there were new guests; consequently new feasts and amus.e.m.e.nts with the young women of Zbaraj. The troops crammed every street, were stationed too in the neighboring villages; and what a variety of horses, arms, uniforms, plumes, chain armor, and steel caps,--uniforms of various provinces! It seemed like a general carnival to which half the Commonwealth had come.

At one moment dashes in a carriage of some magnate, gilt or purple, drawn by six or eight plumed horses; ahead of it outriders in Hungarian or German liveries; attending it household janissaries, Cossacks or Tartars. At another some legionaries appear glittering in velvet or satin without armor, and thrust apart the crowds with their Anatolian or Persian steeds. The plumes of their caps and brooches at their necks are glittering with brilliants and rubies, but all make way for them in sign of respect. Here before a balcony stands an officer of the country infantry, with fresh, bright collar, a long staff in his hand, pride in his face, a village heart in his breast; farther on glitter the rising helmets of the dragoons, the caps of the German infantry, lynx-skin caps of the militia; servants on errands squirm about as if in hot water. Here and there the streets are packed with wagons; in one place the wagons enter, squeaking mercilessly; every place is full of shouts, and cries of "Out of the road!"--curses of servants, disputes, fights, neighing of horses. The narrower streets are packed to such a degree with hay and straw that it is impossible to squeeze through.

Amidst this mult.i.tude of bright uniforms glittering with all the colors of the rainbow, amidst velvet and cloths and s.h.i.+ning satin glittering with brilliants, how strangely appear the regiments of the prince, haggard, tattered, emaciated, with rusty armor, faded and torn uniforms! Soldiers of the best regiments looked like wandering minstrels, worse than the attendants from other commands; but all bow before these rags, before this rust and shabbiness, for they are the banners of heroes. War is a cruel mother; like Saturn, she devours her own children, and whom she does not devour, she gnaws as a dog gnaws bones. Those faded uniforms signify stormy nights, marches amidst the rage of the elements or the burning of the sun; that rust on the steel means the unwiped blood of the man himself, of the enemy, or both together. So the Vishnyevetski men had the first place everywhere. They were the story-tellers in the taverns and the quarters, and others were listeners. Sometimes a spasm would seize one of the listeners, and striking his hands on his hips, he would say, "May the bullets strike you, for you are devils, not men!" But they would answer, "Not ours the merit, but the leader's, whose like the round of the earth has not shown to this day." All feasts therefore ended in shouts: "Vivat Yeremi! Vivat the prince voevoda, the leader of leaders, the hetman of hetmans!"

The n.o.bles, after they had drunk awhile, would rush out on the streets and fire guns and muskets. The prince's men warned them that their freedom was but for a time,--that a moment would come when the prince would take them in hand and enforce discipline such as they had never heard of. They took advantage of the opportunity all the more. "Let us rejoice while we are free," they cried. "When the time for obedience comes we will listen, for we have some one to obey who is not _baby_ nor _Latin_ nor _feather-bed_." And the unfortunate Prince Dominik always came out worst, for the soldiers' tongues ground him to bran.

They said that he prayed whole days, and in the evening hung to the handle of a mug, spat on his stomach, and with one eye open inquired, "What is that?" They said also that he took "jalap" at night, and that he saw as many battles as there were depicted on his carpet by Dutch art. No one defended him any longer, and no one pitied him; and those who were in open opposition to military discipline attacked him most savagely.