The Deluge. Vol. 2

"If I had this fortress," answered the king, "I could finish the war in two months."

"For such a fortress a year's siege is short."

The king in his soul recognized that the old warrior was right, but he did not acknowledge that he saw no means himself, that his genius was strained. He counted yet on some unexpected event; hence he gave orders to fire night and day.

"I will bend the spirit in them," said he; "they will be more inclined to treaties."

After some days of cannonading so furious that the light could not be seen behind the smoke, the king sent Forgell again to the fortress.

"The king, my master," said Forgell, appearing before Zamoyski, "considers that the damage which Zamost must have suffered from our cannonading will soften the lofty mind of your princely grace and incline it to negotiations."

To which Zamoyski said: "Of course there is damage! Why should there not be? You killed on the market square a pig, which was struck in the belly by the fragment of a bomb. If you cannonade another week, perhaps you'll kill another pig."

Forgell took that answer to the king. In the evening a new council was held in the king's quarters; next day the Swedes began to pack their tents in wagons and draw their cannon out of the trenches, and in the night the whole army moved onward.

Zamost thundered after them from all its artillery, and when they had vanished from the eye two squadrons, the Shemberk and the Lauda, passed out through the southern gate and followed in their track.

The Swedes marched southward. Wittemberg advised, it is true, a return to Warsaw, and with all his power he tried to convince the king that that was the only road of salvation; but the Swedish Alexander had determined absolutely to pursue the Polish Darius to the remotest boundaries of the kingdom.

CHAPTER XXX

The spring of that year approached with wonderful roads; for while in the north of the Commonwealth snow was already thawing, the stiffened rivers were set free, and the whole country was filled with March water, in the south the icy breath of winter was still descending from the mountains to the fields, woods, and forests. In the forests lay snow-drifts, in the open country frozen roads sounded under the hoofs of horses; the days were dry, the sunsets red, the nights starry and frosty. The people living on the rich clay, on the black soil, and in the woods of Little Poland comforted themselves with the continuance of the cold, stating that the field-mice and the Swedes would perish from it. But inasmuch as the spring came late, it came as swiftly as an armored squadron advancing to the attack of an enemy. The sun shot down living fire from heaven, and at once the crust of winter burst; from the Hungarian steppes flew a strong warm wind, and began to blow on the fields and wild places. Straightway in the midst of shining ponds arable ground became dark, a green fleece shot up on the low river-lands, and the forests began to shed tears from bursting buds on their branches.

In the heavens continually fair were seen, daily, rows of cranes, wild ducks, teal, and geese. Storks flew to their places of the past year, and the roofs were swarming with swallows; the twitter of birds was heard in the villages, their noise in the woods and ponds, and in the evening the whole country was ringing with the croaking and singing of frogs, which swam with delight in the waters.

Then came great rains, which were as if they had been warmed; they fell in the daytime, they fell in the night, without interruption.

The fields were turned into lakes, the rivers overflowed, the fords became impassable; then followed the "stickiness and the impossible of muddy roads." Amid all this water, mud, and swamp the Swedish legions dragged onward continually toward the south.

But how little was that throng, advancing as it were to destruction, like that brilliant army which in its time marched under Wittemberg to Great Poland! Hunger had stamped itself on the faces of the old soldiers; they went on more like spectres than men, in suffering, in toil, in sleeplessness, knowing that at the end of the road not food was awaiting, but hunger; not sleep, but a battle; and if rest, then the rest of the dead.

Arrayed in iron these skeletons of horsemen sat on skeletons of horses. The infantry hardly drew their legs along; barely could they hold spears and muskets with trembling hands. Day followed day; they went onward continually. Wagons were broken, cannons were fastened in sloughs; they went on so slowly that sometimes they were able to advance hardly five miles in one day. Diseases fell on the soldiers, like ravens on corpses; the teeth of some were chattering from fever; others lay down on the ground simply from weakness, choosing rather to die than advance.

But the Swedish Alexander hastened toward the Polish Darius unceasingly. At the same time he was pursued himself. As in the night-time jackals follow a sick buffalo waiting to see if he will soon fall, and he knows that he will fall and he hears the howl of the hungry pack, so after the Swedes went "parties," nobles and peasants, approaching ever nearer, attacking ever more insolently, and snatching away.

At last came Charnyetski, the most terrible of all the pursuers, and followed closely. The rearguards of the Swedes as often as they looked behind saw horsemen, at one time far off on the edge of the horizon, at another a furlong away, at another twice the distance of a musket-shot, at another time, when attacking, on their very shoulders.

The enemy wanted battle; with despair did the Swedes pray to the Lord of Hosts for battle. But Charnyetski did not receive battle, he bided his time; meanwhile he preferred to punish the Swedes, or let go from his hand against them single parties as one would falcons against water birds.

And so they marched one after the other. There were times, however, when Charnyetski passed the Swedes, pushed on, and blocked the road before them, pretending to prepare for a general battle. Then the trumpet sounded joyously from one end of the Swedish camp to the other, and, oh miracle! new strength, a new spirit seemed to vivify on a sudden the wearied ranks of the Scandinavians. Sick, wet, weak, like Lazaruses, they stood in rank promptly for battle, with flaming faces, with fire in their eyes. Spears and muskets moved with as much accuracy as if iron hands held them; the shouts of battle were heard as loudly as if they came from the healthiest bosoms, and they marched forward to strike breast against breast.

Then Charnyetski struck once, twice; but when the artillery began to thunder he withdrew his troops, leaving to the Swedes as profit, vain labor and the greater disappointment and disgust.

When, however, the artillery could not come up, and spears and sabres had to decide in the open field, he struck like a thunderbolt, knowing that in a hand-to-hand conflict the Swedish cavalry could not stand, even against volunteers.

And again Wittemberg implored the king to retreat and thus avoid ruin to himself and the army; but Karl Gustav in answer compressed his lips, fire flashed from his eyes, and he pointed to the south, where in the Russian regions he hoped to find Yan Kazimir, and also fields open to conquest, rest, provisions, pastures for horses, and rich plunder.

Meanwhile, to complete the misfortune, those Polish regiments which had served him hitherto, and which in one way or another were now alone able to meet Charnyetski, began to leave the Swedes. Pan Zbrojek resigned first; he had held to Karl hitherto not from desire of gain, but from blind attachment to the squadron, and soldierly faithfulness to Karl. He resigned in this fashion, that he engaged in conflict with a regiment of Miller's dragoons, cut down half the men, and departed. After him resigned Pan Kalinski, who rode over the Swedish infantry. Yan Sapyeha grew gloomier each day; he was meditating something in his soul, plotting something. He had not gone hitherto himself, but his men were deserting him daily.

Karl Gustav was marching then through Narol, Tsyeshanov, and Oleshytse, to reach the San. He was upheld by the hope that Yan Kazimir would bar his road and give him battle. A victory might yet repair the fate of Sweden and bring a change of fortune. In fact, rumors were current that Yan Kazimir had set out from Lvoff with the quarter soldiers and the Tartars. But Karl's reckonings deceived him. Yan Kazimir preferred to await the junction of the armies and the arrival of the Lithuanians under Sapyeha. Delay was his best ally; for he was growing daily in strength, while Karl was becoming weaker.

"That is not the march of troops nor of an army, but a funeral procession!" said old warriors in Yan Kazimir's suite.

Many Swedish officers shared this opinion. Karl Gustav however repeated still that he was going to Lvoff; but he was deceiving himself and his army. It was not for him to go to Lvoff, but to think of his own safety. Besides, it was not certain that he would find Yan Kazimir in Lvoff; in every event the "Polish Darius" might withdraw far into Podolia, and draw after him the enemy into distant steppes where the Swedes must perish without rescue.

Douglas went to Premysl to try if that fortress would yield, and returned, not merely with nothing, but plucked. The catastrophe was coming slowly, but inevitably. All tidings brought to the Swedish camp were simply the announcement of it. Each day fresh tidings and ever more terrible.

"Sapyeha is marching; he is already in Tomashov!" was repeated one day. "Lyubomirski is marching with troops and mountaineers!" was announced the day following. And again: "The king is leading the quarter soldiers and the horde one hundred thousand strong! He has joined Sapyeha!"

Among these tidings were "tidings of disaster and death," untrue and exaggerated, but they always spread fear. The courage of the army fell. Formerly whenever Karl appeared in person before his regiments, they greeted him with shouts in which rang the hope of victory; now the regiments stood before him dull and dumb. And at the fires the soldiers, famished and wearied to death, whispered more of Charnyetski than of their own king. They saw him everywhere. And, a strange thing! when for a couple of days no party had perished, when a few nights passed without alarms or cries of "Allah!" and "Strike, kill!" their disquiet became still greater. "Charnyetski has fled; God knows what he is preparing!" repeated the soldiers.

Karl halted a few days in Yaroslav, pondering what to do. During that time the Swedes placed on flat-bottomed boats sick soldiers, of whom there were many in camp, and sent them by the river to Sandomir, the nearest fortified town still in Swedish hands. After this work had been finished, and just when the news of Yan Kazimir's march from Lvoff had come in, the King of Sweden determined to discover where Yan Kazimir was, and with that object Colonel Kanneberg with one thousand cavalry passed the San and moved to the east.

"It may be that you have in your hands the fate of the war and us all," said the king to him at parting.

And in truth much depended on that party, for in the worst case Kanneberg was to furnish the camp with provisions; and if he could learn certainly where Yan Kazimir was, the Swedish King was to move at once with all his forces against the "Polish Darius," whose army he was to scatter and whose person he was to seize if he could.

The first soldiers and the best horses were assigned, therefore, to Kanneberg. Choice was made the more carefully as the colonel could not take artillery or infantry; hence he must have with him men who with sabres could stand against Polish cavalry in the field.

March 20, the party set out. A number of officers and soldiers took farewell of them, saying: "God conduct you! God give victory! God give a fortunate return!" They marched in a long line, being one thousand in number, and went two abreast over the newly built bridge which had one square still unfinished, but was in some fashion covered with planks so that they might pass.

Good hope shone in their faces, for they were exceptionally well fed. Food had been taken from others and given to them; gorailka was poured into their flasks. When they were riding away they shouted joyfully and said to their comrades, —

"We will bring you Charnyetski himself on a rope."

Fools! They knew not that they were going as go bullocks to slaughter at the shambles!

Everything combined for their ruin. Barely had they crossed the river when the Swedish sappers removed the temporary covering of the bridge, so as to lay stronger planks over which cannon might pass. The thousand turned toward Vyelki Ochi, singing in low voices to themselves; their helmets glittered in the sun on the turn once and a second time; then they began to sink in the dense pine-wood.

They rode forward two miles and a half, – emptiness, silence around them; the forest depths seemed vacant altogether. They halted to give breath to the horses; after that they moved slowly forward. At last they reached Vyelki Oehi, in which they found not a living soul. That emptiness astonished Kanneberg.

"Evidently they have been waiting for us here," said he to Major Sweno; "but Charnyetski must be in some other place, since he has not prepared ambushes."

"Does your worthiness order a return?" asked Sweno.

"We will go on even to Lvoff itself, which is not very far. I must find an informant, and give the king sure information touching Yan Kazimir."

"But if we meet superior forces?"

"Even if we meet several thousand of those brawlers whom the Poles call general militia, we will not let ourselves be torn apart by such soldiers."

"But we may meet regular troops. We have no artillery, and against them cannons are the main thing."

"Then we will draw back in season and inform the king of the enemy, and those who try to cut off our retreat we will disperse."

"I am afraid of the night!" replied Sweno.

"We will take every precaution. We have food for men and horses for two days; we need not hurry."