The Deluge. Vol. 2

When they entered the pine-wood beyond Vyelki Ochi, they acted with vastly more caution. Fifty horsemen rode in advance musket in hand, each man with his gunstock on his thigh. They looked carefully on every side; examined the thickets, the undergrowth; frequently they halted, listened; sometimes they went from the road to one side to examine the depths of the forest, but neither on the roads nor at the sides was there a man.

But one hour later, after they had passed a rather sudden turn, two troopers riding in advance saw a man on horseback about four hundred yards ahead.

The day was clear and the sun shone brightly; hence the man could be seen as something on the hand. He was a soldier, not large, dressed very decently in foreign fashion. He seemed especially small because he sat on a large cream-colored steed, evidently of high breed.

The horseman was riding at leisure, as if not seeing that troops were rolling on after him. The spring floods had dug deep ditches in the road, in which muddy water was sweeping along. The horseman spurred his steed in front of the ditches, and the beast sprang across with the nimbleness of a deer, and again went on at a trot, throwing his head and snorting vivaciously from time to time.

The two troopers reined in their horses and began to look around for the sergeant. He clattered up in a moment, looked, and said: "That is some hound from the Polish kennel."

"Shall I shout at him?"

"Shout not; there may be more of them. Go to the colonel."

Meanwhile the rest of the advance guard rode up, and all halted; the small horseman halted too, and turned the face of his steed to the Swedes as if wishing to block the road to them. For a certain time they looked at him and he at them.

"There is another! a second! a third! a fourth! a whole party!" were the sudden cries in the Swedish ranks.

In fact, horsemen began to pour out from both sides of the road; at first singly, then by twos, by threes. All took their places in line with him who had appeared first.

But the second Swedish guard with Sweno, and then the whole detachment with Kanneberg, came up. Kanneberg and Sweno rode to the front at once.

"I know those men!" cried Sweno, when he had barely seen them; "their squadron was the first to strike on Prince Waldemar at Golamb; those are Charnyetski's men. He must be here himself!"

These words produced an impression; deep silence followed in the ranks, only the horses shook their bridle-bits.

"I sniff some ambush," continued Sweno. "There are too few of them to meet us, but there must be others hidden in the woods."

He turned here to Kanneberg: "Your worthiness, let us return."

"You give good counsel," answered the colonel, frowning. "It was not worth while to set out if we must return at sight of a few ragged fellows. Why did we not return at sight of one? Forward!"

The first Swedish rank moved at that moment with the greatest regularity; after it the second, the third, the fourth. The distance between the two detachments was becoming less.

"Cock your muskets!" commanded Kanneberg.

The Swedish muskets moved like one; their iron necks were stretched toward the Polish horsemen.

But before the muskets thundered, the Polish horsemen turned their horses and began to flee in a disorderly group.

"Forward!" cried Kanneberg.

The division moved forward on a gallop, so that the ground trembled under the heavy hoofs of the horses.

The forest was filled with the shouts of pursuers and pursued. After half an hour of chasing, either because the Swedish horses were better, or those of the Poles were wearied by some journey, the distance between the two bodies was decreasing.

But at once something wonderful happened. The Polish band, at first disorderly, did not scatter more and more as the flight continued, but on the contrary, they fled in ever better order, in ranks growing more even, as if the very speed of the horses brought the riders into line.

Sweno saw this, urged on his horse, reached Kanneberg, and called out, —

"Your worthiness, that is an uncommon party; those are regular soldiers, fleeing designedly and leading us to an ambush."

"Will there be devils in the ambush, or men?" asked Kanneberg.

The road rose somewhat and became ever wider, the forest thinner, and at the end of the road was to be seen an unoccupied field, or rather a great open space, surrounded on all sides by a dense, deep gray pine-wood.

The Polish horsemen increased their pace in turn, and it transpired that hitherto they had gone slowly of purpose; for now in a short time they pushed forward so rapidly that the Swedish leader knew that he could never overtake them. But when he had come to the middle of the open plain and saw that the enemy were almost touching the other end of it, he began to restrain his men and slacken speed.

But, oh marvel! the Poles, instead of sinking in the opposite forest, wheeled around at the very edge of the half-circle and returned on a gallop toward the Swedes, putting themselves at once in such splendid battle order that they roused wonder even in their opponents.

"It is true!" cried Kanneberg, "those are regular soldiers. They turned as if on parade. What do they want for the hundredth time?"

"They are attacking us!" cried Sweno.

In fact, the squadron was moving forward at a trot. The little knight on the cream-colored steed shouted something to his men, pushed forward, again reined in his horse, gave signs with his sabre; evidently he was the leader.

"They are attacking really!" said Kanneberg, with astonishment.

And now the horses, with ears dropped back, were coming at the greatest speed, stretched out so that their bellies almost touched the ground. Their riders bent forward to their shoulders, and were hidden behind the horse manes. The Swedes standing in the first rank saw only hundreds of distended horse-nostrils and burning eyes. A whirlwind does not move as that squadron tore on.

"God with us! Sweden! Fire!" commanded Kanneberg, raising his sword.

All the muskets thundered; but at that very moment the Polish squadron fell into the smoke with such impetus that it hurled to the right and the left the first Swedish ranks, and drove itself into the density of men and horses, as a wedge is driven into a cleft log. A terrible whirl was made, breastplate struck breast-plate, sabre struck rapier; and the rattle, the whining of horses, the groan of dying men roused every echo, so that the whole pine-wood began to give back the sounds of the battle, as the steep cliffs of mountains give back the thunder.

The Swedes were confused for a time, especially since a considerable number of them fell from the first blow; but soon recovering, they went powerfully against the enemy. Their flanks came together; and since the Polish squadron was pushing ahead anyhow, for it wished to pass through with a thrust, it was soon surrounded. The Swedish centre yielded before the squadron, but the flanks pressed on it with the greater power, unable to break it; for it defended itself with rage and with all that incomparable adroitness which made the Polish cavalry so terrible in hand-to-hand conflict. Sabres toiled then against rapiers, bodies fell thickly; but the victory was just turning to the Swedish side when suddenly from under the dark wall of the pinewood rolled out another squadron, and moved forward at once with a shout.

The whole right wing of the Swedes, under the lead of Sweno, faced the new enemy in which the trained Swedish soldiers recognized hussars. They were led by a man on a valiant dapple gray; he wore a burka, and a wild-cat skin cap with a heron feather. He was perfectly visible to the eye, for he was riding at one side some yards from the soldiers.

"Charnyetski! Charnyetski!" was the cry in the Swedish ranks.

Sweno looked in despair at the sky, then pressed his horse with his knees and rushed forward with his men.

But Charnyetski led his hussars a few yards farther, and when they were moving with the swiftest rush, he turned back alone.

With that a third squadron issued from the forest, he galloped to that and led it forward; a fourth came out, he led that on; pointing to each with his baton, where it must strike. You would have said that he was a man leading harvesters to his field and distributing work among them.

At last, when the fifth squadron had come forth from the forest, he put himself at the head of that, and with it rushed to the fight.

But the hussars had already forced the right wing to the rear, and after a while had broken it completely; the three other squadrons, racing around the Swedes in Tartar fashion and raising an uproar, had thrown them into disorder; then they fell to cutting them with steel, to thrusting them with lances, scattering, trampling, and finally pursuing them amid shrieks and slaughter.

Kanneberg saw that he had fallen into an ambush, and had led his detachment as it were under the knife. For him there was no thought of victory now; but he wished to save as many men as possible, hence he ordered to sound the retreat. The Swedes, therefore, turned with all speed to that same road by which they had come to Vyelki Ochi; but Charnyetski's men so followed them that the breaths of the Polish horses warmed the shoulders of the Swedes.

In these conditions and in view of the terror which had seized the Swedish cavalry, that return could not take place in order; and soon Kanneberg's brilliant division was turned into a crowd fleeing in disorder and slaughtered almost without resistance.

The longer the pursuit lasted, the more irregular it became; for the Poles did not pursue in order, each of them drove his horse according to the breath in the beast's nostrils, and attacked and slew whom he wished.

Both sides were mingled and confused in one mass. Some Polish soldiers passed the last Swedish ranks; and it happened that when a Pole stood in his stirrups to strike with more power the man fleeing in front of him, he fell himself thrust with a rapier from behind. The road to Vyelki Ochi was strewn with Swedish corpses; but the end of the chase was not there. Both sides rushed with the same force along the road through the next forest; there however the Swedish horses, wearied first, began to go more slowly, and the slaughter became still more bloody.

Some of the Swedes sprang from their beasts and vanished in the forest; but only a few did so, for the Swedes knew from experience that peasants were watching in the forest, and they preferred to die from sabres rather than from terrible tortures, of which the infuriated people were not sparing. Some asked quarter, but for the most part in vain; for each Pole chose to slay an enemy, and chase on rather than take him prisoner, guard him, and leave further pursuit.