Thaddeus of Warsaw Part 9

After a long march through a dark and dismal night, the morning began to break; and Thaddeus found himself on the southern side of that little river which divides the territories of Sobieski from the woods of Kobylka. Here, for the first time, he endured all the torturing varieties of despair.

The once fertile fields were burnt to stubble; the cottages were yet smoking from the ravages of the fire; and in place of smiling eyes and thankful lips coming to meet him, he beheld the dead bodies of his peasants stretched on the high roads, mangled, bleeding, and stripped of that decent covering which humanity would not deny to the vilest criminal.

Thaddeus could bear the sight no longer, but, setting spurs to his horse, fled from the contemplation of scenes which harrowed up his soul.

At nightfall, the army halted under the walls of Villanow. The count looked towards the windows of the palace, and by a light s.h.i.+ning through the half-drawn curtains, distinguished his mother's room. He then turned his eye on that sweep of building which contained the palatine's apartments; but not one solitary lamp illumined its gloom: the moon alone glimmered on the battlements, silvering the painted gla.s.s of the study window, where, with that beloved parent, he had so lately gazed upon the stars, and antic.i.p.ated with the most sanguine hopes the result of the campaign which had now terminated so disastrously for his unhappy country.

But these thoughts, with his grief and his forebodings, were buried in the depths of his determined heart. Addressing General Wawrzecki, he bade him welcome to Villanow, requesting at the same time that his men might be directed to rest till morning, and that he and the officers would take their refreshment within the palace.

As soon as Thaddeus had seen his guests seated at different tables in the eating-hall, and had given orders for the soldiers to be served from the b.u.t.tery and cellars, he withdrew to seek the countess. He found her in her chamber, surrounded by the attendants who had just informed her of his arrival. The moment he appeared at the room door, the women went out at an opposite pa.s.sage, and Thaddeus, with a bursting heart, threw himself on the bosom of his mother. They were silent for some time. Poignant recollection stopped their utterance; but neither tears nor sighs filled its place, until the countess, on whose soul the full tide of maternal affection pressed, and mingled with her grief, raised her head from her son's neck, and said, whilst she strained him in her arms, "Receive my thanks, O Father of mercy, for having spared to me this blessing!"

Thaddeus Sobieski (all that now remained of that beloved and honored name!) with a sacred emotion breathed a response to the address of his mother, and drying her tears with his kisses, dwelt upon the never-dying fame of his revered grandfather, upon his preferable lot to that of their brave friend Kosciusko, who was doomed not only to survive the liberty of his country, but to pa.s.s the residue of his life within the dungeons of his enemies. He then tried to reanimate her spirits with hope. He spoke of the approaching battle, without any doubt of the valor and desperation of the Poles rendering it successful. He talked of the resolution of their leader, General Wawrzecki, and of his own good faith in the justice of their cause.

His discourse began in a wish to cheat her into tranquillity; but as he advanced on the subject, his soul took fire at its own warmth, and he half believed the probability of his antic.i.p.ations.

The countess looked on the honorable glow which crimsoned his hara.s.sed features with a pang at her heart.

"My heroic son!" cried she, "my darling Thaddeus! what a vast price do I pay for all this excellence! I could not love you were you otherwise than what you are; and being what you are, oh, how soon may I lose you! Already has your n.o.ble grandfather paid the debt which he owed to his glory. He promised to fall with Poland; he has kept his word; and now, all that I love on earth is concentrated in you." The countess paused, and pressing his hand almost wildly on her heart, she continued in a hurried voice, "The same spirit is in your breast; the same principle binds you; and I may be at last left alone. Heaven have pity on me!"

She cast her eyes upward as she ended. Thaddeus, sinking on his knees by her side, implored her with all the earnestness of piety and confidence to take comfort. The countess embraced him with a forced smile. "You must forgive me, Thaddeus; I have nothing of the soldier in my heart: it is all woman. But I will not detain you longer from the rest you require; go to your room, and try and recruit yourself for the dangers to-morrow will bring forth. I shall employ the night in prayers for your safety."

Consoled to see any composure in his mother, he withdrew, and after having heard that his numerous guests were properly lodged, went to his own chamber.

Next morning at sunrise the troops prepared to march. General Wawrzecki, with his officers, begged permission to pay their personal grat.i.tude to the countess for the hospitality of her reception; but she declined the honor, on the plea of indisposition. In the course of an hour, her son appeared from her apartment and joined the general.

The soldiers filed off through the gates, crossed the bridge, and halted under the walls of Praga. The lines of the camp were drawn and fortified before evening, at which time they found leisure to observe the enemy's strength.

Russia seemed to have exhausted her wide regions to people the narrow sh.o.r.es of the Vistula; from east to west, as far as the eye could reach, her arms were stretched to the horizon. Sobieski looked at them, and then on the handful of intrepid hearts contained in the small circ.u.mference of the Polish camp. Sighing heavily, he retired into his tent; and vainly seeking repose, mixed his short and startled slumbers with frequent prayers for the preservation of these last victims to their country.

The hours appeared to stand still. Several times he rose from his bed and went to the door, to see whether the clouds were tinged with any appearance of dawn. All continued dark. He again returned to his marquee, and standing by the lamp which was nearly exhausted, took out his watch, and tried to distinguish the points; but finding that the light burned too feebly, he was pressing the repeating spring, which struck five, when the report of a single musket made him start.

He flew to his tent door, and looking around, saw that all near his quarter was at rest. Suspecting it to be a signal of the enemy, he hurried towards the intrenchments, but found the sentinels in perfect security from any fears respecting the sound, as they supposed it to have proceeded from the town.

Sobieski paid little attention to their opinions, but ascending the nearest bastion to take a wider survey, in a few minutes he discerned, though obscurely, through the gleams of morning, what appeared to be the whole host of Russia advancing in profound silence towards the Polish lines. The instant he made this discovery, he came down, and lost no time in giving orders for the defence; then flying to other parts of the camp, he awakened the commander-in-chief, encouraged the men, and saw that the whole encampment was not only in motion, but prepared for the a.s.sault.

In consequence of these prompt arrangements, the a.s.sailants were received with a cross-fire of the batteries, and case-shot and musketry from several redoubts, which raked their flanks as they advanced. But in defiance of this shower of bullets, they pressed on with an intrepidity worthy of a better cause, and overleaping the ditch by squadrons, entered the camp. A pa.s.sage once secured, the Cossacks rushed in by thousands, and spreading themselves in front of the storming party, put every soul to the spear who opposed them.

The Polish works being gained, the enemy turned the cannon on its former masters, and as they rallied to the defence of what remained, swept them down by whole regiments. The noise of artillery thundered from all sides of the camp; the smoke was so great, that it was hardly possible to distinguish friends from foes; nevertheless, the spirits of the Poles flagged not a moment; as fast as one rampart was wrested from them, they threw themselves within another, which was as speedily taken by the help of hurdles, fascines, ladders, and a courage as resistless as it was ferocious, merciless, and sanguinary.

Every spot of vantage position was at length lost; and yet the Poles fought like lions; quarter was neither offered to them nor required; they disputed every inch of ground, until they fell upon it in heaps, some lying before the parapets, others filling the ditches and the rest covering the earth, for the enemy to tread on as they cut their pa.s.sage to the heart of the camp.

Sobieski, almost maddened by the scene, dripping with his own blood and that of his brave friends, was seen in every part of the action; he was in the fosse, defending the trampled bodies of the dying; he was on the d.y.k.e, animating the few who survived. Wawrzecki was wounded, and every hope hung upon Thaddeus. His presence and voice infused new energy into the arms of his fainting countrymen; they kept close to his side, until the victors, enraged at the dauntless intrepidity of this young hero, uttered the most fearful imprecations, and rus.h.i.+ng on his little phalanx, attacked it with redoubled numbers and fury.

Sobieski sustained the shock with firmness; but wherever he turned his eyes, they were blasted with some object which made them recoil; he beheld his companions and his soldiers strewing the earth, and their triumphant adversaries mounting their dying bodies, as they hastened with loud huzzas to the destruction of Praga, whose gates were now burst open. His eyes grew dim at the sight, and at the very moment in which he tore them from spectacles so deadly to his heart, a Livonian officer struck him with a sabre, to all appearance dead upon the field.

When he recovered from the blow, (which, having lit on the steel of his cap, had only stunned him,) he looked around, and found that all near him was quiet; but a far different scene presented itself from the town. The roar of cannon and the bursting of bombs thundered through the air, which was rendered livid and tremendous by long spires of fire streaming from the burning houses, and mingling with the volumes of smoke which rolled from the guns. The dreadful tocsin, and the hurrahs of the victors, pierced the soul of Thaddeus.

Springing from the ground, he was preparing to rush towards the gates, when loud cries of distress issued from within. They were burst open, and a moment after, the grand magazine blew up with a horrible explosion.

In an instant the field before Praga was filled with women and children, flying in all directions, and rending the sky with their shrieks. "Father Almighty!" cried Thaddeus, wringing his hands, "canst thou suffer this?" Whilst he yet spake, some straggling Cossacks near the town, who were prowling about, glutted, but not sated with blood, seized the poor fugitives, and with a ferocity as wanton as unmanly, released them at once from life and misery.

This hideous spectacle brought his mother's defenceless state before the eyes of Sobieski. Her palace was only four miles distant; and whilst the barbarous avidity of the enemy was too busily engaged in sacking the place to permit them to perceive a solitary individual hurrying away amidst heaps of dead bodies, he flew across the desolated meadows which intervened between Praga and Villanow.

Thaddeus was met at the gate of his palace by General Butzou, who, having learned the fate of Praga from the noise and flames in that quarter, antic.i.p.ated the arrival of some part of the victorious army before the walls of Villanow. When its young count, with a breaking heart, crossed the drawbridge, he saw that the worthy veteran had prepared everything for a stout resistance; the ramparts were lined with soldiers, and well mounted with artillery.

"Here, thou still honored Sobieski," cried he, as he conducted Thaddeus to the keep; "let the worst happen, here I am resolved to dispute the possession of your grandfather's palace until I have not a man to stand by me!" [Footnote: It was little more than just a century before this awful scene took place that the invincible John Sobieski, King of Poland, acting upon the old mutually protecting principles of Christendom, saved the freedom and the faith of Christian Europe from the Turkish yoke. And in this very mansion he pa.s.sed his latter years in honored peace. He died in 1694--a remarkable coincidence, the division of Poland occurring in 1794.]

Thaddeus strained him in silence to his breast; and after examining the force and dispositions, he approved all with a cold despair of their being of any effectual use, and went to the apartments of his mother.

The countess's women, who met him in the vestibule, begged him to be careful how he entered her excellency's room, for she had only just recovered from a swoon, occasioned by alarm at hearing the cannonade against the Polish camp. Her son waited for no more, but not hearing their caution, threw open the door of the chamber, and hastening to his mother's couch, cast himself into her arms. She clung round his neck, and for a while joy stopped her respiration. Bursting into tears, she wept over him, incapable of expressing by words her tumultuous grat.i.tude at again beholding him alive. He looked on her altered and pallid features.

"O! my mother," cried he clasping her to his breast; "you are ill; and what will become of you?"

"My beloved son!" replied she kissing his forehead through the clotted blood that oozed from a cut on his temple; "my beloved son, before our cruel murderers can arrive, I shall have found a refuge in the bosom of my G.o.d."

Thaddeus could only answer with a groan. She resumed. "Give me your hand. I must not witness the grandson of Sobieski given up to despair; let your mother incite you to resignation. You see I have not breathed a complaining word, although I behold you covered with wounds." As she spoke, her eye pointed to the sash and handkerchief which were bound round his thigh and arm. "Our separation will not be long; a few short years, perhaps hours, may unite us forever in a better world."

The count was still speechless; he could only press her hand to his lips. After a pause, she proceeded--

"Look up, my dear boy! and attend to me. Should Poland become the property of other nations, I conjure you, if you survive its fall, to leave it. When reduced to captivity, it will no longer be an asylum for a man of honor. I beseech you, should this happen, go that very hour to England: that is a free country; and I have been told that the people are kind to the unfortunate. Perhaps you will find that Pembroke Somerset hath not quite forgotten Poland. Thaddeus! Why do you delay to answer me? Remember, these are your mother's dying words!"

"I will obey them, my mother!"

"Then," continued she, taking from her bosom a small miniature, "let me tie this round your neck. It is the portrait of your father."

Thaddeus bent his head, and the countess fastened it under his neck- cloth. "Prize this gift, my child; it is likely to be all that you will now inherit either from me or that father. Try to forget his injustice, my dear son; and in memory of me, never part with that picture. O, Thaddeus! From the moment in which I first received it until this instant, it has never been from my heart!"

"And it shall never leave mine," answered he, in a stifled voice,"

whilst I have being."

The countess was preparing to reply, when a sudden volley of firearms made Thaddeus spring upon his feet. Loud cries succeeded. Women rushed into the apartment, screaming, "The ramparts are stormed!" and the next moment that quarter of the building rocked to its foundation. The countess clung to the bosom of her son. Thaddeus clasped her close to his breast, and casting up his pet.i.tioning eyes to heaven, cried, "s.h.i.+eld of the desolate! grant me a shelter for my mother!"

Another burst of cannon was followed by a heavy crash, and the most piercing shrieks echoed through the palace. "All is lost!" cried a soldier, who appeared for an instant at the room door, and then vanished.

Thaddeus, overwhelmed with despair, grasped his sword, which had fallen to the ground, and crying, "My mother, we will die together!"

would have given her one last and a.s.suring embrace, when his eyes met the sight of her before-agitated features tranquillized in death. She fell from his palsied arms back on the couch, and he stood gazing on her as if struck by a power which had benumbed all his faculties.

The tumult in the palace increased every moment; but he heard it not, until Butzou, followed by two or three of his soldiers, ran into the apartment, calling out "Count, save yourself!"

Sobieski still remained motionless. The general caught him by the arm, and instantly covering the body of the deceased countess with the mantle of her son, hurried his unconscious steps, by an opposite door, through the state chambers into the gardens.

Thaddeus did not recover his recollection until he reached the outward gate; then, breaking from the hold of his friend, was returning to the sorrowful scene he had left, when Butzou, aware of his intentions, just stopped him in time to prevent his rus.h.i.+ng on the bayonets of a party of the enemy's infantry, who were pursuing them at full speed.

The count now rallied his distracted faculties, and making a stand, with the general and his three Poles, they compelled this merciless detachment to seek refuge among the arcades of the building.

Butzou would not allow his young lord to follow in that direction, but hurried him across the park. He looked back, however; a column of fire issued from the south towers. Thaddeus sighed, as if his life were in that sigh, "All is indeed over;" and pressing his hand to his forehead, in that att.i.tude followed the steps of the general towards the Vistula.

The wind being very high, the flame soon spread itself over the roof of the palace, and catching at every combustible in its way, the invaders became so terrified at the quick progress of fire which threatened to consume themselves as well as their plunder, that they quitted the spot with precipitation. Decrying the count and his soldiers at a short distance, they directed their motions to that point. Speedily confronting the brave fugitives, they blocked up a bridge by a file of men with fixed pikes, and not only menaced the Polanders as they advanced, but derided their means of resistance.

Sobieski, indifferent alike to danger and to insults, stopped short to the left, and followed by his friends, plunged into the stream, amidst a shower of musket-b.a.l.l.s from the enemy. After hard buffeting with the torrent, he at last reached the opposite bank, and was a.s.sisted from the river by some of the weeping inhabitants of Warsaw, who had been watching the expiring ashes of Praga, and the flames then devouring the boasted towers of Villanow.

Emerged from the water, Thaddeus stood to regain his breath; and leaning on the shoulder of Butzou, he pointed to his burning palace with a smile of agony. "See," said he, "what a funeral pile Heaven has given to the manes of my unburied mother!"