The Deluge. Vol. 2

"Your worthiness!" said the officer at once, "these men are hanging."

"That is true!" answered Douglas.

They sprang forward, and stood for a while near the corpses. Four foot-soldiers were hanging together by ropes, like a bunch of thrushes, their feet barely an inch above the ground, for they were on the lower branches.

Douglas looked at them indifferently enough; then said as if to himself, "Now we know that the prince and Babinich have passed this way."

Then he fell to thinking again, for he did not know well whether to continue on by the forest path or go out on the Ostrolenko highway.

Half an hour later they found two other corpses. Evidently they were marauders or sick men whom Babinich's Tartars had seized while pursuing the prince.

"But why did the prince retreat?"

Douglas knew him too well – that is, both his daring and his military experience – to admit even for a moment that the prince had not sufficient reasons. Therefore something must have intervened.

Only next day was the affair explained. Pan Byes Kornie had come from Prince Boguslav, with a party of thirty horse, to report that Yan Kazimir had sent beyond the Bug against Douglas the full hetman Pan Gosyevski, with six thousand Lithuanians and Tartar horse.

"We learned this," said Pan Byes, "before Babinich came up; for he advanced very carefully and attacked frequently, therefore annoyingly. Gosyevski is twenty or twenty-five miles distant. When the prince received the tidings, he was forced to retreat in haste, so as to join Radzeyovski, who might be cut to pieces easily. But by marching quickly we made the junction. The prince sent out at once parties of a few tens of men in every direction, with a report to your worthiness. Many of them will fall into Tartar or peasant hands, but in such a war it cannot be otherwise."

"Where are the prince and Radzeyovski?"

"Ten miles from here, at the river."

"Did the prince bring back all his forces?"

"He was forced to leave the infantry, which is coming through the thickest forest, so as to escape the Tartars."

"Such cavalry as the Tartar is made to go through the densest forests. I do not expect to see that infantry again. But no one is to blame, and the prince acted like an experienced leader."

"The prince threw out one party the most considerable to Ostrolenko, to lead Gosyevski into error. He will go to Ostrolenko at once, thinking that our whole force is there."

"That is well!" said Douglas, comforted. "We will manage Gosyevski."

And he marched without delay to join Boguslav and Radzeyovski. They met that same day, to the great delight, especially, of Radzeyovski, who feared captivity more than death, for he knew that as a traitor and the originator of all the misfortunes of the Commonwealth he would have to give a terrible answer. But now, after the junction with Douglas, the Swedish army had more than four thousand men; therefore it was able to offer an effective resistance to the forces of the full hetman. He had, it is true, six thousand cavalry; but Tartars – except those of Babinich, who were trained – could not be used in offensive battle, and Pan Gosyevski himself, though a skilled and learned warrior, was not able, like Charnyetski, to inspire men with an enthusiasm which nothing could resist.

But Douglas was at a loss to understand why Yan Kazimir should send the full hetman beyond the Bug. The Swedish king with the elector was marching on Warsaw; a general battle must therefore follow, sooner or later. And though Yan Kazimir was at the head of a force superior in numbers to the Swedes and the Brandenburgers, still six thousand men formed too great a force for the King of Poland to set aside voluntarily.

It is true that Gosyevski had saved Babinich from trouble, but still the king did not need to send out a whole division to the rescue of Babinich. Hence there was in this expedition some secret object, which the Swedish general, despite all his penetration, could not divine.

In the letter of the King of Sweden sent a week later great alarm was evident, and as it were astonishment caused by that expedition, but a few words explained the reasons of this. According to the opinion of Karl Gustav, the hetman was not sent to attack Douglas's army, nor to go to Lithuania to aid the uprising there, for in Lithuania the Swedes, as it was, were not able to do anything but to threaten Royal Prussia, namely, the eastern part of it, which was completely stripped of troops.

"The calculation is," wrote the king, "to make the elector waver in faithfulness to the treaty of Marienburg and to us; which may easily happen, since the elector is ready to enter into alliance with Christ against the Devil and at the same time with the Devil against Christ, so as to win something from both."

The letter ended by enjoining on Douglas to strive with all his forces not to let the hetman go to Prussia, "who if he cannot reach there in the course of a few weeks, will be forced beyond doubt to return to Warsaw."

Douglas saw that the task given him did not surpass his powers at all. Not so long before he had met with a certain success in opposing Charnyetski himself; therefore Gosyevski was not terrible. The Swedish general did not hope, it is true, to crush Gosyevski's division, but he felt certain that he would be able to stop him and curb all his movements.

In fact, from that moment began very skilful approaches of the two armies, which, avoiding on both sides a general battle, endeavored each to flank the other. Both leaders emulated each other; but the experienced Douglas was in so far superior that he did not let Gosyevski advance beyond Ostrolenko. But Babinich, saved from Boguslav's attack, did not hasten to join the Lithuanian division, for he occupied himself with great zeal on that infantry which Boguslav in his hurried march to Radzeyovski was forced to leave behind. Babinich's Tartars, guided by local woodmen, pursued night and day, finishing every moment the incautious or those who dropped into the rear. Lack of provisions forced the Swedes at last to separate into small detachments which could find food more easily; this was all that Babinich was waiting for.

He divided his forces into three commands, under lead of Akbah Ulan, Soroka, and himself, and in a few days he destroyed the greater part of that infantry. It was an untiring hunt after men in forest thickets, in willows, in reeds, – a hunt full of noise, uproar, shouting, shooting, and death.

Widely did it spread the glory of Babinich's name among the Mazovians. Bands collected and joined Gosyevski at Ostrolenko itself, when the full hetman, whose march was only a demonstration, received a command from the king to march back to Warsaw. For a short period only could Babinich rejoice with his acquaintances; namely, with Zagloba and Volodyovski, who at the head of the Lauda squadron attended the hetman. But they greeted one another very cordially, for great friendship and intimacy existed already between them. The young colonels were sharply annoyed that they could not act now against Boguslav; but Zagloba consoled them by pouring frequently into their glasses, and saying, —

"That is nothing! My head has been working since May over stratagems, and I have never racked it over anything in vain. I have a number ready, – very excellent stratagems; but there is no time to apply them, unless at Warsaw, whither we are all marching."

"I must go to Prussia," said Babinich, "and cannot be at Warsaw."

"Can you reach Prussia?" asked Volodyovski.

"As God is in heaven, I shall spring through; and I promise you sacredly to make not the worst cabbage-hash, for I shall say to my Tartars, 'Riot, my soul!' They would be glad even here to draw the knife across people's throats; but I have told them that pay for every violence is the rope. But in Prussia I will give way even to my own will. Why should I not spring through? You were not able; but that is another thing, for it is easier to stop a large force than such a party as mine, with which it is easy to hide. More than once was I sitting in the rushes, and Douglas's men passed right there, knowing nothing of me. Douglas too will surely follow you, and leave the field free to me."

"But, as we hear, you have wearied him out too," said Pan Michael, with satisfaction.

"Ah, the scoundrel!" added Zagloba. "He had to change his shirt every day, he sweated so. You never stole up to Hovanski better than to him, and I must acknowledge that I could not have done better myself, though, in his time, Konyetspolski said that Zagloba in partisan warfare was unsurpassed."

"It seems to me," said Pan Michael to Kmita, "that if Douglas returns he will leave Boguslav here to attack you."

"God grant it! I have the same hope," answered Kmita, quickly. "Were I to seek him, and he me, we should find each other. He will not pass through me a third time; and if he does, then I shall not rise again. I remember your secrets well; and all the Lubni thrusts I have in memory like 'Our Father.' Every day, too, I try them with Soroka, so as to train my hand."

"What are stratagems good for?" exclaimed Pan Michael; "the sabre is the main thing."

This maxim touched Zagloba somewhat; therefore he said at once: "Every windmill thinks that the main thing is to whirl its wings. Do you know why, Michael? Because it has chaff under its roof; that is, in its head. Military art rests on stratagems; if not, Roh Kovalski might be grand hetman and you full hetman."

"And what is Pan Kovalski doing?" asked Kmita.

"Pan Kovalski has now an iron helmet on his head, and justly, for cabbage is best out of a pot. He has grown rich on plunder in Warsaw, has come into good repute, and gone to the hussars, to Prince Polubinski, and all so as to be able to put a spear into Karl Gustav. He comes every day to our tent, and stares to see if the neck of the decanter is sticking out of the straw. I cannot break that lad of drinking. Good example goes for nothing; but I prophesied to him that this desertion of the Lauda squadron would turn out evil. The rogue! the thankless fellow! in return for all the benefits which I have shown him, such a son for a lance!"

"But did you rear him?"

"My dear sir, do not make me a bear-trainer! To Sapyeha, who asked me the same question. I answered that he and Roh had the same preceptor, but not me; for I in youthful years was a cooper, and knew how to set staves very well."[10 - This means that if Zagloba had been preceptor to the hetman or Kovalski, they would have had better wit. "Having a stave loose or lacking in his barrel," means, in Polish, that a man's mind is not right.]

"To begin with, you would not dare to tell that to Sapyeha," said Volodyovski; "and secondly, though you grumble at Kovalski, you love him as the apple of your eye."

"I prefer him to you, Pan Michael; for I could never endure May-bugs, nor soapy little fellows who at the sight of the first woman who comes along play antics like German dogs."

"Or like those monkeys in the Kazanovski Palace, with which you were carrying on war."

"Oh, laugh, laugh! You can take Warsaw without me next time."

"Was it you, then, who took Warsaw?"

"But who captured the Cracow Gate? Who invented captivity for the generals? They are sitting now on bread and water in Zamost; and when Wittemberg looks at Wrangel, he says, 'Zagloba put us here!' and both fall to weeping. If Sapyeha were not ill, and if he were present, he would tell you who first drew the Swedish claw from the skin of Warsaw."

"For God's sake!" said Kmita, "do this for me, – send news of that battle for which they are preparing at Warsaw. I shall be counting the days and nights on my fingers till I know something certain."

Zagloba put his finger to his forehead. "Listen to my forecast," said he, "for what I tell you will be accomplished as surely as that this glass is standing before me – Is it not standing before me?"

"It is, it is! Speak on."