The Deluge. Vol. 2

But others preferred to look at Olenka, who bore herself differently. At first, when bullets flew past at some distance she grew pale too, not being able to forbear inclining her head and closing her eyes; but later knightly blood began to act in her, then with face flushed like a rose she reared her head and looked forward with fearless eye. Her distended nostrils drew in as it were with pleasure the smell of powder. Since the smoke grew thicker and thicker at the gate and decreased the view greatly, the daring lady, seeing that the officers were advancing, went with them, to follow more accurately the course of battle, not even thinking of what she was doing.

In the throng of cavalry there rose a murmur of praise.

"Oh, that is blood! that is the wife for a soldier; she is the right kind of volunteer!"

"Vivat Panna Billevich!"

"Let us hasten, gracious gentlemen, for it is worth while before such eyes."

"The Amazons did not meet muskets better!" cried one of the younger men, forgetting in his enthusiasm that the Amazons lived before the invention of powder.

"It is time to finish. The infantry have borne themselves well, and the enemy are seriously shattered!"

In fact, the enemy could do nothing with their cavalry. Every moment they urged on their horses, attacked the gate, but after a salvo drew back in disorder. And as a wave which has fallen upon the flat shore leaves behind mussels, stones, and dead fish, so after each attack a number of bodies of horses and men were left on the road before the gate.

At last the onsets ceased. Only volunteers came up, firing in the direction of the village with pistols and guns rather thickly, so as to occupy the attention of Billevich's men. But the sword-bearer, coming out along the gutter of the house, saw a movement in the rear ranks of the enemy toward the fields and thickets extending along the left side of Volmontovichi.

"They will try from that side!" cried he; and sent immediately a part of the cavalry between the houses so as to give resistance to the enemy from the gardens.

In half an hour a new battle was begun on the left wing of the party and also with fire-arms. The fenced gardens rendered difficult a hand-to-hand struggle, and equally difficult for both sides.

The enemy, however, being extended over a longer line, were less exposed to bullets.

The battle was becoming more stubborn and more active, and the enemy did not cease to attack the gate.

Billevich was growing uneasy. On the right flank he had a field behind him still free, ending with a stream not very wide, but deep and swampy, through which a passage, especially if in haste, might be difficult. In one place only was there a trodden road to a flat shore along which villagers drove cattle to the forest.

The sword-bearer began to look around oftener toward that side. All at once among willows which could be seen through, for they had lost their leaves, he saw in the evening light glittering weapons and a dark cloud of soldiers.

"Babinich is coming!" thought he.

But at that moment Pan Hjanstovski, who led the cavalry, rushed up to him.

"Swedish infantry are visible from the river!" cried he, in terror.

"Some treason!" cried Pan Tomash. "By Christ's wounds, gallop with your cavalry against that infantry; otherwise it will attack us on the flank."

"There is a great force!" answered Hjanstovski.

"Oppose it even for an hour, and we will escape in the rear to the forests."

The officer galloped away, and was soon rushing over the field at the head of two hundred men; seeing which the enemy's infantry began to form in the willows to receive the Poles. The squadron urged the horses, and in the willow-bushes a musketry fire was soon rattling.

Billevich had doubts, not only of victory, but of saving his own infantry. He might withdraw to the rear with a part of the cavalry with the ladies, and seek safety in the forest; but such a withdrawal would be a great defeat, for it meant leaving to the enemy's sword most of the party and the remnant of the population of Lauda, which had collected in Volmontovichi to see Billevich. Volmontovichi itself would be levelled to the ground. There remained still the lone hope that Hjanstovski would break the infantry. Meanwhile it was growing dark in the sky; but in the village the light increased every moment, for the chips, splinters, and shavings, lying in a heap at the first house near the gate, had caught fire. The house itself caught fire from them, and a red conflagration was rising.

By the light of the burning Billevich saw Hjanstovski's cavalry returning in disorder and panic; after it the Swedish infantry were rushing from the willows, advancing to the attack on a run.

He understood then that he must retreat by the only road open. He rushed to the rest of the cavalry, waved his sword and cried, —

"To the rear, gentlemen, and in order, in order!"

Suddenly shots were heard in the rear also, mingled with shouts of soldiery.

Billevich saw then that he was surrounded, that he had fallen as it were into a trap from which there was neither issue nor rescue. It remained for him only to perish with honor; therefore he sprang out before the line of cavalry, and cried, —

"Let us fall one upon the other! Let us not spare our blood for the faith and the country!"

Meanwhile the fire of the infantry defending the gate and the left side of the village had grown weak, and the increasing shout of the enemy announced their near victory.

But what mean those hoarse trumpet sounds in the ranks of Sakovich's party, and the rattle of drums in the ranks of the Swedes?

Outcries shriller and shriller are heard, in some way wonderful, confused, as if not triumph but terror rings through them.

The fire at the gate stops in a moment, as if some one had cut it off with a knife. Groups of Sakovich's cavalry are flying at break-neck speed from the left flank to the main road. On the right flank the infantry halt, and then, instead of advancing, begin to withdraw to the willows. "What is this?" cried Billevich.

Meanwhile the answer comes from that grove out of which Sakovich had issued; and now emerge from it men, horses, squadrons, horsetail standards, sabres, and march – no, they fly like a storm, and not like a storm, – like a tempest! In the bloody gleams of the fire they are as visible as a thing on the hand. They are hastening in thousands! The earth seems to flee from beneath them, and they speed on in dense column; one would say that some monster had issued from the oak-grove, and is sweeping across the fields to the village to swallow it. The air flies before them, driven by the impetus; with them go terror and ruin. They are almost there! Now the attack! Like a whirlwind they scatter Sakovich's men.

"O God! O great God!" cries Billevich, in bewilderment; "these are ours! That must be Babinich!"

"Babinich!" roared every throat after him.

"Babinich! Babinich!" called terrified voices in Sakovich's party.

And all the enemy's cavalry wheel to the right, to escape toward the infantry. The fence is broken with a sharp crash, under the pressure of horses' breasts. The pasture is filled with the fleeing; but the new-comers, on their shoulders already, cut, slash, – cut without resting, cut without pity. The whistling of sabres, cries, groans, are heard. Pursuers and pursued fall upon the infantry, overturn, break, and scatter them. At last the whole mass rolls on toward the river, disappears in the brush, clambers out on the opposite bank. Men are visible yet; the chasing continues, with cutting and cutting. They recede. Their sabres flash once again; then they vanish in bushes, in space, and in darkness.

Billevich's infantry began to withdraw from the gate and the houses, which needed no further defence. The cavalry stood for a time in such wonder that deep silence reigned in the ranks; and only when the flaming house had fallen with a crash was some voice heard on a sudden, —

"In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the storm has gone by!"

"Not a foot will come out alive from that hunt!" said another voice.

"Gracious gentlemen!" cried the sword-bearer, suddenly, "shall we not spring at those who came at us in the rear? They are retreating, but we will come up."

"Kill, slay!" answered a chorus of voices.

All the cavalry wheeled around and urged their horses after the last division of the enemy. In Volmontovichi remained only old men, women, children, and "the lady" with her friend.

They quenched the fire in a twinkle; joy inconceivable seized all hearts. Women with weeping and sobbing raised their hands heavenward, and turning to the point where Babinich had rushed away, cried, —

"God bless thee, invincible warrior! savior who rescued us, with our children and houses, from ruin!"

The ancient, decrepit Butryms repeated in chorus, —

"God bless thee, God guide thee! Without thee this would have been the end of Volmontovichi."

Ah, had they known in that crowd that the very same hand that had now saved the village from fire and the people from steel had two years before brought fire and the sword to that Volmontovichi!

After the fire was quenched, all began to collect in Billevich's wounded; the youths in a rage ran through the battle-field, and killed, with poles from wagon-racks, the wounded left by the Swedes and Sakovich's ravagers.